I'm Afraid To Go Outside

I realized this at work today, coming back into the room from getting coffee or running to the bathroom.

We're in the middle of what appears to be the longest heatwave in my lifetime: Daytime highs in the mid-'90's, humidity in the seventies and eighties, heat indices crossing 110. It started in earnest Saturday and will continue, in my opinion, as far as my eye can see, although it's supposed to be a tad drier come Thursday.

But that doesn't help now. Forecasters say the next two days, tomorrow and Wednesday, will be the worst, with tomorrow having the worse heat index and Wednesday the higher air temp, predicted to be 100.

It was shitty today. I think it felt like 110+. I was out and about Saturday and Sunday, and it felt all humid as fuck then, but we at least had the saving grace of clouds. If it were sunny this weekend, God, I think I'd've melted.

But it was sunny out all day today (Monday). While outside has been a blast furnace all weekend, Monday was the first time that you could tell it felt like a blast furnace outside, you know?

And yet, standing in the hallway of our antiseptic but air-conditioned building, it was a brilliant day outside. It'd be a typical summer day, a day that beckons you to play hooky and go to the beach ... except it would then fry you alive with heat that could grill a steak on the parking lot. It's so weird to look at something so benign, yet know that it would feel like hell on earth once you step outside the doors.

It's that dichotomy, that visual siren song, that made me scared of outside these past few days to a degree I hadn't felt since I was a kid in spring and didn't know what allergies were. I would stay indoors because only then would I know I wouldn't sneeze and have to blow my nose or rub my eyes. These past few days, like my misspent youth, I've been sedentary on my bed. And I would gaze outside, secretly frightened over the oppressive force beyond this house's walls, waiting to kill me.