The apartment – 3:47 PM – Week Two of the Heatwave

The fan groans on its highest setting, blades chopping the thick air into uneven gusts. It does little but push the heat around, really—just enough to make the sweat on Lisa’s collarbones evaporate faster, leaving salt streaks in their wake. She's sprawled on the entryway tiles, limbs splayed like a starfish, all 5'9" of damp woman, one cheek pressed to the cool ceramic. Her damp tank top rides up at the ribs, bike shorts twisted from an earlier, fruitless attempt to find a colder patch of floor. Even the cool tiles were warm now, something that was now treated with all the tragedy it deserved. The bathtub was still safe, for now.

A half-melted tray of cubes sweats onto the floor beside her, condensation pooling in the grout lines. Her hair, at this point, is closer to black than brown, perspiration clinging to her roots.

"Six weeks," she announces to the ceiling, voice cracked with heat and something perilously close to grief. "Six weeks for the AC people to even look at us. That's not a waitlist, that's a fucking obituary." She's not expecting an answer from her girlfriend, only whining for the sake of it, a new sick sort of pleasure caused by perpetual discomfort taking over their household.

A fly lands on her knee. She doesn't bother shooing it.

The windows stands ajar—not enough to let more heat in, just enough to taunt with the possibility of a breeze that never comes. Outside, the sidewalk shimmers like wet tinfoil, the heat making even smells more unbearable. Lisa was on the sixth day of trying to get rid of the ants that crawled up from outside at the slightest crumb, the battle for now stalled in the quest for AC.