Curse Texas!

Scarcely six weeks after clasping me into her bosom, Texas has spit me out like a piece of gristle.

I used to be pretty gung-ho about running before dawn when it was “cool,” but several times recently I’ve run in the evenings and survived. I thought I had developed tolerance of the heat.

But clearly there is a difference even between 7 in the evening, when I had performed these recent tolerable runs, and 4:30 in the afternoon. Today I was playing the metaphor game to take my mind off the misery. The best comparison I could come up with for my sensations at the moment was the way it feels when you take your bread out of the oven and the hot air comes whooshing up into your face. Unfortunately the whooshing had only occurred when I was running into the wind; on the way back the only movement was life-giving moisture trickling down my body.

Then I saw a happy sight! Ahead there was shade—not tree shade, but cloud shade! A general cloud was providing shelter from the sun just ahead. I thought benevolently of Elijah and his hand-sized cloud. Mine was even bigger and better, befitting this great state.

Then I remembered I was running in the same direction as the wind. The shade was advancing ahead of me! I would never reach it! Curse this abominable state!

I plotted to transfix idle guests at next week’s wedding with my glittering eye, and force upon them my shocking tale.

With throats unslaked, with black lips baked,
We could nor laugh nor wail;
Something something something something
and cried, “A sail! A sail!”

Why had I memorized such a boring stanza? I wondered to myself. Yet this was the one that kept coming to me.

There was no one to blame for my misery but Texas, who in her laziness chose this angle to sprawl out on the globe, making the entire day inhospitable for humans wishing to take the slightest advantage of their natural mobility.

She has sent me no more glossy water-snakes. The only notable wildlife I saw today was one of those nasty mutant eyeball-looking acorns. Texas, I renounce you!