All This Happened, More or Less

The day started with the sudden silence of lost electricity and the air conditioner's dying breath.

Despite being dead asleep before the outage, I quickly rolled over onto my back and kicked off my covers. Of course, I thought. Of course the electricity has to go out on the hottest day of the year. Shaking my head at the idea of having to spend more than a couple minutes in the unbearable heat, and thankful that I'd chosen to sleep in only a cami and my underwear, I pulled on some shorts and quickly made my way through the apartment opening windows to try to maximize the possibility of a breeze.

I knocked when I reached the door to my brother's room. "Hey G? Graham?" No answer so I opened the door to his abnormally clean room to continue opening windows. Once all the windows were open, I headed back to my bedroom. With clothing, books and movies strewn all over the floor, it's more appropriately cluttered. Once there, I tried to assess my options. There was no way I'd be able to go back to sleep with the hot, heavy air and stifling humidity clinging to me so I decided that, with nothing better to do, I'd get ready for work. I needed to be there in a few hours, anyway. Plus, I added brightly, a cold shower might not be so bad right now.

Upon coming to this decision, I scanned the floor for my towel, trying to remember where I'd dumped it earlier this morning when I'd finished with my standard wash-off-the-booze-and-vomit shower that accompanied coming home from working at O'Leary's all night. I found it crumpled in a pile at the end of my bed and walked to the bathroom I shared with the unused guest room next door.

Apparently, ice cold showers are still relatively painful even when it feels like 105 degrees outside.

After the longest shower I could bear, I wrapped my towel around myself and walked back to my room to change. I'd long ago learned that black clothing bore stains better than most colors, especially in a bar that wasn't all that brightly lit, so most of my wardrobe now consisted of, if not black, dark colors.

The doorbell rang just as I finished pulling on a worn pair of jeans and a tank top and, as I walked to the door, I did my best to towel off my long, dark hair - catching sight, as I did so, of a couple strands of electric blue from the streak I'd added several days ago and had since come to regret.

Just as I reached the door, the electricity kicked back in. Oh, thank God! "Give me a minute!" I called, running through the apartment trying, ironically, to not let the air out. "Just give me a minute!" Outside, the person had started to knock incessantly on the door. I deliberately slowed my pace.

I unlocked the door as slowly as I possibly could - tying my hair up on top of my head, making sure what little makeup I was wearing hadn't started to run in the oppressive heat, checking my reflection in the mirror beside the door, wondering, absently, if both of the sixes on the door to the apartment had flipped upside down again, making us number 949, straightening my clothes and taking my time with the locks - all with my shadow visible through the crack between the door and the floor and just to piss off the person outside. Serves them right for being such a pain in the ass.

Finally, I opened the door.