BURNT ORANGE SUMMER

And I think there is a cool change coming soon,’ the crinkle-cut cellophane radio whispers to me. The man is telling me that there has not been rain for months, that his newborn doesn’t know that the sky can be wet. He is telling me because I am the only one here, everyone else is somewhere they can breathe.

The room is sweating just for me. Through the doorway I can see a single fan on the kitchen table next to the fruit bowl. Holding the oranges, now soft and sweating also. I sink into the couch, cracked leather sticking to the underside of my bare thighs, and watch a fly hover over and then land on my freckled knee.

I drift in and out of consciousness. I close my eyes for just a moment, then all at once I am gone, in a dreamland of downfalls and persistent relief. Suddenly there is orange juice dripping from the sky, sticking to the street sides and my love’s cheeks. Her hair honeyed and soaked drips down her back. Before the citrus rain ends, we swim down the creek and rejoice in floating and summer storms. I don’t think about my home, with its barren drylands or the endlessness of waiting. I simply reach out a hand and watch the rainfall and notice how everything here is still growing.

And then I wake, and I am back in my one-bedroom apartment, alone with the peeling kitchen floor tiles and broken windows. Gently, I stand and step outside, feeling the crunch of dirt and dead grass between my toes, looking up for nothing. Not for a long time anyway, maybe next month. This drought seems determined to wait it out, to tug-of-war it until the end, for us to be the first to break. Perhaps we will be the ones to crack, along with the earth. Perhaps we will shed enough tears and heartbreak to replenish the land.

For now, I go back inside and break open the orange flesh with my thumbnails, tear and squeeze into my mouth. I don’t bother to wipe my lips; the juice dries quickly. I move back to the couch, resume my position, staring, and waiting.