By Ben Greenman
from forthcoming collection, as yet untitled
It was still intensely hot this morning, but by midday a stiff breeze from the west managed to mitigate the oppressive rays of the sun. The thermometer set records all day. At eight this morning it was 91 degrees. At nine it was 92. At ten it was 94. The temperature reached 95 by eleven, but then began to back down a bit, and it did not exceed 92 for the rest of the day. The city parks were quiet places except for a few small children running around nearly naked with buckets of water. The following are the fatal cases of sunstroke which occurred over the past two days: Walter Martin, a bartender; Richard Brenton, the founder of a corporation that manufactures environmentally responsible elastic waistbands; George Tyson, a cab driver; Jeremiah Nelson and Harold Christopher, unknown. In addition to those, four men and women entrusted with measuring the temperature at various sites around the city also temporarily succumbed, though they are expected to recover: Cece Pelton, Howard Gunn, Brandon Garcia, and Alberta Curiosity.
No comments:
Post a Comment