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Shorts
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| Mad Dogs and Salesmen | |
| By Snodlander | ||||||||||||
| 23 September 2008 | ||||||||||||
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In celebration of the wonderful summer just gone Standing under the awning Jason could hardly breathe. The air seemed to settle on him like treacle, each breath he sucked an unproductive struggle. Inches in front of him the sun burnt away colour, so everything looked washed out and faded. He absent-mindedly fumbled in his shirt pocket for his sunglasses. They weren't there. Had they fallen out on the train? He blinked against the blinding glare, then realised he was wearing them. Even filtered and polarised, his eyes watered. His shirt collar rasped against his neck with every movement of his head, the double Windsor knot of his tie hitting his Adam's apple with each dry swallow. Was this what it was like, below decks in the slaver galleys as they crossed the Atlantic? Could the Black Hole of Calcutta have been any more suffocating? Jason squinted at his watch. Twenty minutes. The taxi rank was deserted. It looked as though it had always been empty, and always would be. Should he wait any longer? It was a ten minute walk, the client said, when Jason had made the appointment. He couldn't be late, not on his first visit. Selling was hard enough in the current economic climate without making new customers wait. Jason edged out into the heat and looked up and down the road. It was deserted, all life baked out of the street. Even the wind had given up and moved on to cooler climes. No taxis, no people, not even any insects. He would walk, and have ten minutes to collect himself when he arrived. He rested his bag on the low wall outside the station and pulled out the sheet of paper with the map he had downloaded, printed in smudged ink. The sun bounced off the brilliant white paper and attacked his eyes with needles of light. He sneezed, and thought how ridiculous it was, sneezing on the hottest day of the year. Shouldn't he save it for the coldest? He screwed his eyes into slits and traced his route. Turn left and walk for three blocks, then right and the office should be on his left. He folded the map and dropped it into his trouser pocket. He took out a handkerchief and wiped the palms of his hand, grasped the slippery plastic handle of his briefcase and turned towards his destination. The road stretched before him, straight and imposing. The midday sun forced the shadows to hug the buildings, the north-south alignment offering no respite for as far as he could see. The road curved upwards in a gentle incline. At least, it looked like a gentle incline, but as Jason started to climb, it somehow transformed itself into alpine proportions. Within seconds his shirt started to stick to his back. How he wished he could do this in T-shirt and shorts. As a boy he had spent long hot summers in scraps of clothing and thought nothing of the heat. Surely it was never like this, though, an open-air sauna. He had cycled, his legs a blur, hunched over his handlebars, for mile on mile. He had played tag with his friends for hours on end. He didn't remember breaking out in a sweat, never mind suffering from heat exhaustion like this. It couldn't possibly be him. He was still young and fit. Well, relatively, anyway. No, it must be the weather. They never had summers like this when he was younger. He stopped and swapped the case into his other hand. As he did so he felt the wetness under his arms as they brushed against his torso. What would his shirt look like when he arrived? It was so pristine when he had donned it that morning. Clean, pressed and cool. Fridge-white and smart, he could almost hear the 'ching' of a gleam sparkling off it. Now it was wet and flaccid, sticking to his body like cling-wrap. He wouldn't be able to remove his jacket, that's for sure. He pushed on, wearily hauling a foot up and letting it drop in front of him. Up, drop, up, drop, like a Keystone Kop prisoner with a ball and chain on both feet. He stopped again, placed the case on the ground and wiped his face with his handkerchief. The small square of cotton was wet now. Not just damp, but soaked through as though he had the worst head cold in the world. He put it back in his pocket, and felt the moisture leak through onto his thigh. He ran his hand through his hair, and felt the heat singe his scalp as the roasted follicles pressed into his skin. What would it be like to be bald in this weather? Would his head explode, like an egg in a microwave? He looked back the way he had come, then forward along the way he still had to go. He was exhausted, and hadn't quite completed a block yet. Oh God in heaven, was any amount of commission worth this? But God had nothing to do with this. Surely this was the Devil's work, venting Hell's atmosphere into the overground world, giving the poor souls here a taster of what was to be. He picked up the case and resumed his slow slog up the hill. Somewhere in the distance an ice-cream van played its doorbell version of Greensleeves. If it drove past Jason, he would 'stop me and buy one' all right, if it meant throwing himself in front of the van. Two blocks gone now. Halfway, at least. A dog lay in front of a door, panting in the narrow strip of shade the doorway provided. It could barely move its eyes to follow Jason's progress, let alone leap up and bark at him. Too hot even for mad dogs. Only salesmen, then, were mad enough to brave this heat. Three blocks, and here was his turn-off. He glanced at his watch. The ten minute walk had taken him fifteen so far. So much for his ten minutes to compose himself. At least the street here was less steep. Jason strode out, donning his friendly yet confident persona of salesman extraordinaire. Within ten paces he lost his character, the heat making it impossible to pretend to be anyone other than a heat-stroke victim on the point of collapse. Finally, like the oasis in the middle of the Sahara, there was the office block, a new glass-fronted building gleaming in the sun. As he approached the door the sun attacked him from both directions, beating down on his back and bouncing off the building facade to burn his face. A double-dose of radiation to test his mettle at the last. He shoved at the door and stumbled into the dark interior. The cold hit him like a wall. Air-conditioning! Having soldiered through the torture of purgatory this was the paradise beyond. His perspiration, hot and sticky a moment before, chilled to ice-cold in an instant, and he shuddered with delicious hypothermia. He walked up to the receptionist. The young girl looked up at him and smiled, then nodded to the darkened windows. "Lovely day, isn't it?" she said. "Glorious," said Jason. "Absolutely wonderful."
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