The killing heat
London bakes. 31 degrees in the shade and the air's heavy, somehow: suggests thunderstorms.
And in the office of a client, I'm vibing it. A slow constant sweat pooling in the small of my back, metronomic rivulets breaking their surface tension every four minutes. I count 6 computers, two of them heavy-duty servers, in this 3x3m space and each one's pumping out heat. There's no air con in this 1800s building, and only an electric fan to rattle the air's suffocating blanket. But somehow it's ok: I lived in Singapore for three years, after all, in a house where the only air conditioning came from there being no glass in the kitchen windows. 39 degrees in this room. But somehow it's ok.
Far beneath my feet, people are spitroasting in reverse: not with a tube thrust through their innards, but by being thrust onto a Tube, by time and work and economics. 50 degrees has been reported, presumably in a strangled gasp of disbelief. Some trains are cooled these days, but not many: the tunnels are old and there's nowhere for the heat to go. But somehow I dig it.
Because that's London: a city of extremes, of soft places and hard edges, and the seasonal suffocations are just part of the experience of living here. Later I'll sweat out the streets and hit the pool, sluicing away the heat in a few lengths of gentle freestyle. And then I'll head to my house, which being small and boxlike should be stifling, but it never is: air flows nicely between my floors.
And then I'll sleep, while the heat subsides outside and gathers itself for the next morning, when the heat will wake me more surely than any alarm clock. The heat. The endless, killing heat.
And in the office of a client, I'm vibing it. A slow constant sweat pooling in the small of my back, metronomic rivulets breaking their surface tension every four minutes. I count 6 computers, two of them heavy-duty servers, in this 3x3m space and each one's pumping out heat. There's no air con in this 1800s building, and only an electric fan to rattle the air's suffocating blanket. But somehow it's ok: I lived in Singapore for three years, after all, in a house where the only air conditioning came from there being no glass in the kitchen windows. 39 degrees in this room. But somehow it's ok.
Far beneath my feet, people are spitroasting in reverse: not with a tube thrust through their innards, but by being thrust onto a Tube, by time and work and economics. 50 degrees has been reported, presumably in a strangled gasp of disbelief. Some trains are cooled these days, but not many: the tunnels are old and there's nowhere for the heat to go. But somehow I dig it.
Because that's London: a city of extremes, of soft places and hard edges, and the seasonal suffocations are just part of the experience of living here. Later I'll sweat out the streets and hit the pool, sluicing away the heat in a few lengths of gentle freestyle. And then I'll head to my house, which being small and boxlike should be stifling, but it never is: air flows nicely between my floors.
And then I'll sleep, while the heat subsides outside and gathers itself for the next morning, when the heat will wake me more surely than any alarm clock. The heat. The endless, killing heat.
posted by chrisworth at 3:05 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home