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The heat crushes her, as if it were melting her flesh. Everything burns and weighs her down. All food has ceased to interest her. Her body only wants melon, watermelon, ice cream and water. Lots of water. She has made a rucksack out of the camping cooler and carries it in her backpack. It is very full. She has cut the watermelons into squares so that they fit perfectly with the shape of the cooler. It weighs a quintal, but right now it is a matter of survival, of literal life and death. She remembers that the day before yesterday she decided to flee the city for good when she saw the esparto sandals of a woman waiting at the bus stop catch fire. The red-hot asphalt was burning everything. Everything was on fire. Even her mental health and that of those around her. A week ago the hallucinations started. And they were not only hers, no. They were collective. Hallucinations of green, of forest, of humidity, of freshness that ended very badly, a pure nightmare. She realised this on the last day before the holidays, on her last guided tour for tourists at the Mies van der Rohe Pavilion.
As she was explaining the peculiarities of early 20th century modern architecture and functionalism to her foreign listeners, her voice cut out, interrupted by an overwhelming heat. She closed her eyes for a moment and reached into her bag for the bottle of water she was carrying to take a sip. In an instant, the whole house was surrounded by jungle. And she was not the only one to see it. The Japanese, Italian, and German tourists were seeing it too. And also a Brazilian architecture expert who told the group about the similarities between the place and Lina Bo Bardi鈥檚 Glass House. After a short while, all the tropical vegetation entered the building and the sky became cloudy, as if it was going to rain. There was even some thunder and the floor and walls half shooked. Our main character approached one of the palm trees, to touch it and, as she reached out her hand, she felt a strong burn that made her see her own hand on fire. She stepped back and the vision disappeared. She and the whole group were in an area lit by the sun streaming in from outside. The temperature there, behind the glass, must have been about 39 degrees. She apologised to the group and, claiming a dizziness typical of the feverish summer they were experiencing, announced them, still half dizzy, that the visit ended there. No one complained and everyone left.
Such was the heat that an experimental ceramist had begun to use the street as a kiln to fire her work. The heat of the atmosphere left the pieces with a finish characterised by occasional explosions of the material and the appearance of a semi-fired object. Having seen her work in this way, some restaurants had also tried to cook in the public space. Although they succeeded, they did not convince the clientele. People no longer want to eat anything hot. There was also the case of a popular magician-poet, who decided to take his magics out into the streets to entertain the poor citizens who could not leave the infernal core. What happened to him was that when he tried to do the first trick, in which he needed a dice, it began to dissolve and, before it lost its shape completely, he manipulated it with his hands as if he were rounding a piece of modelling clay, and turned it into a circle. A dice turned into a round dice! Now that鈥檚 magic and that鈥檚 poetry. The people applauded, amazed, and he ran home to put the piece in the fridge before it turned into a puddle. And all these experiences, which, narrated in this way, may seem quite extraordinary, for our protagonist, who experienced them first hand, were signs that everything was going to hell and that the urgency to flee from there was becoming more and more imminent. So, wearing plastic sandals, the soles of which were increasingly melting as she approached the exit of the city, she left the city centre at midnight, with her rucksack-fridge on her back and a headlamp on her head, along the side that reached the pine forest before it drove onto the beach a little later. She had to be careful not to get caught by the Sun halfway or her body wouldn鈥檛 take it. She would have a heart attack as so many people have had in recent summers of unbearable heat.
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The heat crushes her, as if it were melting her flesh. Everything burns and weighs her down. All food has ceased to interest her. Her body only wants melon, watermelon, ice cream and water. Lots of water. She has made a rucksack out of the camping cooler and carries it in her backpack. It is very full. She has cut the watermelons into squares so that they fit perfectly with the shape of the cooler. It weighs a quintal, but right now it is a matter of survival, of literal life and death. She remembers that the day before yesterday she decided to flee the city for good when she saw the esparto sandals of a woman waiting at the bus stop catch fire. The red-hot asphalt was burning everything. Everything was on fire. Even her mental health and that of those around her. A week ago the hallucinations started. And they were not only hers, no. They were collective. Hallucinations of green, of forest, of humidity, of freshness that ended very badly, a pure nightmare. She realised this on the last day before the holidays, on her last guided tour for tourists at the Mies van der Rohe Pavilion.
As she was explaining the peculiarities of early 20th century modern architecture and functionalism to her foreign listeners, her voice cut out, interrupted by an overwhelming heat. She closed her eyes for a moment and reached into her bag for the bottle of water she was carrying to take a sip. In an instant, the whole house was surrounded by jungle. And she was not the only one to see it. The Japanese, Italian, and German tourists were seeing it too. And also a Brazilian architecture expert who told the group about the similarities between the place and Lina Bo Bardi鈥檚 Glass House. After a short while, all the tropical vegetation entered the building and the sky became cloudy, as if it was going to rain. There was even some thunder and the floor and walls half shooked. Our main character approached one of the palm trees, to touch it and, as she reached out her hand, she felt a strong burn that made her see her own hand on fire. She stepped back and the vision disappeared. She and the whole group were in an area lit by the sun streaming in from outside. The temperature there, behind the glass, must have been about 39 degrees. She apologised to the group and, claiming a dizziness typical of the feverish summer they were experiencing, announced them, still half dizzy, that the visit ended there. No one complained and everyone left.
Such was the heat that an experimental ceramist had begun to use the street as a kiln to fire her work. The heat of the atmosphere left the pieces with a finish characterised by occasional explosions of the material and the appearance of a semi-fired object. Having seen her work in this way, some restaurants had also tried to cook in the public space. Although they succeeded, they did not convince the clientele. People no longer want to eat anything hot. There was also the case of a popular magician-poet, who decided to take his magics out into the streets to entertain the poor citizens who could not leave the infernal core. What happened to him was that when he tried to do the first trick, in which he needed a dice, it began to dissolve and, before it lost its shape completely, he manipulated it with his hands as if he were rounding a piece of modelling clay, and turned it into a circle. A dice turned into a round dice! Now that鈥檚 magic and that鈥檚 poetry. The people applauded, amazed, and he ran home to put the piece in the fridge before it turned into a puddle. And all these experiences, which, narrated in this way, may seem quite extraordinary, for our protagonist, who experienced them first hand, were signs that everything was going to hell and that the urgency to flee from there was becoming more and more imminent. So, wearing plastic sandals, the soles of which were increasingly melting as she approached the exit of the city, she left the city centre at midnight, with her rucksack-fridge on her back and a headlamp on her head, along the side that reached the pine forest before it drove onto the beach a little later. She had to be careful not to get caught by the Sun halfway or her body wouldn鈥檛 take it. She would have a heart attack as so many people have had in recent summers of unbearable heat.
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