summer after all

The lunch crowd are lazying around the library. On the steps. Beneath the portico. By the tram. They’re sucking down iced lollies in Exchange Square and £8 cocktails up and down Deansgate. Diners drink and don’t eat under umbrellas and open sky.

I want sun blushed tomatoes. Crusty bread. Balsamic and olive oil to dip it all in. But it’s too hot to eat.

I down cold water and a plum. Plums are runny and sticky like the heat down my back. I don’t like Red Bull, but I have one anyway. Sugar free. To make up for my ‘just a plum’ lunch.

I want to sunbathe by the bit of wet on Bridgewater. Near the P&P. But I don’t like age on the face. Ninety odd degrees is good for that and I’m still young….but not that young.

If I were back home and ten, I’d wait until the sun went down and jump in the pool. The sun sets best this way. I’d float on my back until the sky got black.

But dad doesn’t have a pool anymore. And I’m not ten.

So I’ll go back to my apartment with no air conditioning, because 200 year old buildings aren’t made that way, and I’ll sweat.