Drought

Since I've been here, we haven't had a rainy day. Most of the state is suffering from extreme drought conditions. Still, humid afternoons that parch the grass, burning it away bit by bit to strew lawns with dirt patches (despite some people's attempts to surreptitiously water it against the enforced watering bans). The heat shimmers up from the pavement in such waves that it gives the illusion of water trickling down. The water is receding from the muddy banks of the river, the topmost levels now drying and cracking.

Without storm clouds rolling in along the line of a weather front, the sky seems eerily unchanging. A cruel almost metallic blue stretching from horizon to horizon with barely a wisp of white, reflecting sunlight with unbearable clarity. The air doesn't move but settles around you wherever you linger too long like a cloak. The ground is hot and arid, and everywhere you look, you can see the red clay Georgia is famous for pushing through the green or rising up in rusty clouds.

Tomorrow's the first day of summer, and with it will come heat so oppressive, it will steal your breath the moment you walk out the door. It's the kind of weather that brings on lethargy, a sting of heat so intense that it stifles energy. It presses you down, keeps you in. Smothers the euphoria that comes from ozone-rich air, dewy grass, cool darkness. It's the kind of weather made for waiting. It's weather for the unmoving and unchanging. For a time in life that seems to be standing still and timeless. For stretching out under the unforgiving sun in its blazing blue sky, feeling it burn red against your eyelids, feeling its heat fill your lungs, feeling it set fire to every pore on your body and wondering if it will ever rain.