Entropy's Transitional Turpitude

I can remember the last summer I had. The last summer I knew (see also; the biblical sense). The heat of that summer lept up from the pavement and glared from the windshields of cars. It was the summer of the last time I rode a skateboard. The last summer when the beach of was fun. I can remember it in all its sunburned laziness. It wasn’t the last summer she’d sleep with me, but it was the last summer she’d much want to.

She’d never seen the ocean before. Sometimes I worried that maybe it was the smell of salt and kelp she loved, not my voice in the morning, the way she said. We shared the place more than we “lived together,” and the owner’s golden retriever played gracious host for 6 weeks. The place was mostly kitchen or mostly bedroom, depending on the hour. We mostly assembled sandwiches and salads, more than the other thing. I was nervous about the neighbors we didn’t know. I was the Californian, but she was at home here.

Next we made retreat (see also; the military sense) in the woods of some Midwestern place. I’d known forests, but not the dense, foreboding thicket that woods could be. Or the intransigent maze of play, as well. About there, I mostly remember the deer and the fireflies. And the odd cup of coffee sweltered through mornings that straddled thunderstorms. She had begun to notice that people set to fleeing rarely do so really together, but only in tandem. Only incidentally in the same direction. And yet, there, with no neighbors about whom to worry, we found our proper stride.

The chilled rains of deep autumn in the city broke some fever. Passion turned to good natured bemusement and our lives relaxed together. And city neighbors don’t merit much consideration.

I don’t know why I’m telling you this, except maybe to ask later which parts you think are true.