AW September Seasonal Blog Chain

This month’s blog chain on the Absolute Write Water Cooler forums was kicked of by Ralph Pines. He’s the one who offered the theme: seasons. I wrote a flash fiction/short story for the occasion. I hope you like it!

                                        

Summer Tears

I kicked my flat tire with a frustrated grunt. What is it with cars these days? They recently decided to pull sick jokes, is that it? I dropped to the sidewalk, my cell phone in hand. A few digits and someone would be here to help. I sat in a neighborhood; I could just yell. But I couldn’t bear people right now. I wanted to curl up on my couch with a jar of Ben & Jerry. In ice cream lies the power to fight heat waves and sorrows.
I undid a few buttons of my blouse. My elbows went to my folded knees and my hands to my face. Everything in me needed support. My head was no exception. The humid temperature crushed me like the burden of grief. Who else but me would get a flat tire on the hottest day of summer after burying her sister and would-have-been-brother-in-law who died in a car crash?
And what a funeral it was. Everyone cooked in line under their black clothes. By the middle of the ceremony in the graveyard, most people stopped caring about my sister. Their sweaty bodies yearned for air conditioning so the dead mattered less with each minute spent under the sun.
It was all summer’s fault. All of it. The disrespect for the memory of my sister. Hell, her death was the season’s fault in the first place. Wedding season frenzy kills two people. The newspaper loved the headline. The accepted theory stated that my sister and her fiancé argued while he drove. They were so bent on making their point neither of them saw the incoming truck. Dead on impact.
My family thought I was nuts when I said we should use the flowers ordered for the wedding for the funeral. The irony hurt at first but that’s what my sister deserved; a lively goodbye. In that regard, summer probably was probably the season she would have chosen.
Sweat trickled down my neck. The heat invited me to lay flat on my back and wait for the rest of the world to make decisions for me. Moving clearly wasn’t encouraged. The weather didn’t care how hard it already was to pull through the motion. The world felt heavy enough without the humidity dropping in for an unsolicited visit. Humidity is the nasty aunt that always finds her way to family events and you just have to endure her smothering presence.
Then, something changed.
The world took a deep breath, releasing the pressure on me for an instant. The storm broke. The deluge drenched me in a second. I raised my head to curse at the sky but laughter stopped me. Two girls exited a house, jumping around. They laughed as they ran toward a park around the curb. I listened to the drumming of the rain and the chimes of pleasure and remembered.
My sister and I used to do that.
“Adults curse the rain.” She said to me every time I was at her place when it rained. “Children know better.” We always yelled the last part together before rushing to the balcony. “Rain is freedom.”
One day when I felt particularly down, she told me that rain was the sky letting go of its problem and solving ours.
“I guess even you can’t keep it all in,” I murmured.
The temperature became bearable and so did the burden of humidity. I closed my eyes. I cried with the sky and let my anger feed the thunderbolts. The rain played the sweetest parting song, all in notes of pavement, roofs and car metal. The girls still laughed and yelled in the distance like a memory.
“Excuse me,” a male voice cut through the symphony. I opened my eyes on a charming face topped by an umbrella. “I saw you through my window.” He pointed the house across the street. “You look like you’re having a bad day. Anything I can do to help?”
“Are you in the mood to change a flat tire under the rain?”
He kneeled in front of me so our eyes met and the umbrella shielded me as well.
“Not really.” He replied with a crooked smile. “But I do have a working phone.” He glanced knowingly at my cell phone, soaked on the sidewalk. “How about coffee?”
“I don’t trust strangers who are afraid to get wet.”
The mysterious man folded his umbrella and offered me his hand to help me up.

                                              

Here is the list of the blog chain participants:
Ralph_Pines: http://ralfast.wordpress.com/ and direct link to his post
Aheïla (That’s me!)
mada: http://questioningseeking.blogspot.com/
DavidZahir: http://zahirblue.blogspot.com/
orion_mk3: http://nonexistentbooks.wordpress.com/
LadyMage: http://www.katherinegilraine.com/
semmie: http://semmie.wordpress.com/
llalah: http://www.twylanonsequitur.blogspot.com/
hillaryjacques: http://www.hillaryjacques.blogspot.com/
AuburnAssassin: http://clairegillian.wordpress.com/
laffarsmith: http://www.craftingfiction.com/
sbclark: http://www.sonyaclark.net/
FreshHell: http://freshhell.wordpress.com/
PASeasholtz: http://www.paseasholtz.com/
SF4-EVER: http://www.ulbrichalmazan.blogspot.com/
T.N. Tobias: http://tnt-tek.com/
IrishAnnie: http://superpenpower.blogspot.com
Proach: http://desstories.blogspot.com/

Weather in Quebec

You know what happens when you’ve got nothing good to talk about: you switch to the weather topic. It’s kind of what I’m doing today. But not quite. I intend to talk about weather but, hopefully, it’ll be interesting. Or at the very least funny. Might even be insightful.

The season you’ve heard about the most, when it comes to Quebec’s weather, ought to be winter. There’s obviously a lot to talk about. Last winter was pretty tame but I still had to shovel my way into my apartment about once every two weeks. During the worst winters, it’s more like once every two days. Every winter, we hit temperatures as low as -30 Celsius (that’s -22 Fahrenheit) without taking the wind into account. It’s cold. Maybe not the coldest on Earth but cold enough.
I hate winter. I have no tolerance for cold. I keep my apartment at a reasonable temperature for someone who is active. A comforter sits on the couch so I can wrap myself when I relax watching TV. I don’t walk around without my trusty hairy blue loafers. When I get to bed, it takes me half an hour to warm my spot enough for my toes to unfreeze though I pile about 5 comforters over me. And I still wake up with my nose frozen in the morning.
I hate winter. I spend it wishing for summer.
And apparently, so does a big bunch of Quebecers. If you believe their whining, that is. Even though they love skiing and such, they will still occasionally complain about the cold. And all complain about the towering snow bank they have to dig their car out of before coming to work.

So summer should make every one happy, right?

Wrong! For a few days now, we’ve hit the 30+ Celsius (let’s round it up at 90 Fahrenheit) and it is so humid I don’t have to water my flower boxes much despite the heat. It’s sticky. And what to I hear? People wishing for winter!
What the hell is wrong with you guys?
I love summer. I handle the heat way better than the cold. These days, most people have a hard time sleeping. I take a quick cold shower before I go to bed and sleep like a rock. Finally I am not cold. Screw the air conditioning. I actually keep a vest at my desk so I can cover up when the guys drop the temperature too much. Ah! If only summer lasted longer!
I love summer. I spend it thinking I appreciate living a little bit further south.
And apparently, so doesn’t a big bunch of Quebecers. If you believe their whining, that is.

Spending the whole winter wishing for the heat and the whole summer dreaming of the cold, that’s half the year gone by. Whining.
“Well it leaves half the year perfectly happy. They ought to love spring and fall.”
Nope. It rains.