Into summer he slid, with elegance and grace. Begone, spring's indifferent sprinkling of warmth and dew in equal, sloppy measure! Farewell, winter, whose memory even now is enough to chill one's bones to the very white of their deepest marrow! Mere months ago, true, but winter's abscence does not make the heart grow fonder. (Some truisms are not true for all altitudes.)
A deep, bubbling hot tub -- this was the summer in his mind. It would froth at the surface, be scalding to the touch of his toe, and eventually, as all summers do, as all summers must, it would give way. His body would soothe the most tempermental of pools, until access was immediate, a quick slick dip into the tub of June and July, with a dash of August thrown in for good measure.
(Although, if he were honest with himself, if he took the stand in the courtroom of his soul, he would admit, hand firmly placed on the Good Book to make the oath official, that August itself held a certain gentle grip on the firmament of his soul. For despite the roads that backed black heat like fire from the sun itself, and in contradiction to the blue skies and yellow suns that made each day the picture-postcard view of summer that we mistakenly remember from childhoods that did not truly exist, there were nights in that mischievous month, especially towards the end, when a cool came into the air that surely had no place in this season of all seasons. It was autumn's extended family, coming for an unexpected, and most certainly uninvited, visit. A tug at the back of the neck, leaving a touch of what one could swear was almost frost. A wind pushing the screen door shut, a breeze that passed the border between cool and cold and entered the country of unnaturally crisp. An occasional cloud in the sky that had the dark and bragging belly of December's lazy son. August was still ahead, but he would not be fooled so easily by its welcome, steamy embrace, not when the hug that lingered left a cool that stained one's skin blue too soon.)
