Summer or Love

Sometimes I forget that it is summer. I keep waiting, but it's an ambiguous wait. A wait for something that is not yet definitive and without definition remains unfulfilled for the very reason that when it is had it will not be recognized.


Instead, time tiptoes by. The clouds hover low and whisper winds that deny warmth. We hide away in our darkened rooms, backs turned to the glaring brightness of heat outside. We hop tentatively into air conditioned units thwarting away what we spend most of our year craving. And suddenly, we turn it off. We are perplexed to find that we don't need it. That suddenly, summer passed, but it was as if summer never came. The leaves change colour, die, and fall.


What were we waiting for? Why did we not embrace it while it was there? Why did we fix our gazes to our futures and ignore the moment that we actually had? How was it possible that we keep waiting for something that was in a future that we had already trodden on and left in the past?


Everything we are waiting for, maybe we already have it. Maybe it's there and has started before we even knew it begun. Maybe we should stop waiting for something that will never be because in waiting we forget that it is here now.

It's spelt c o l g a t e

I'm at the back of the bus, having just gotten on a few stops ago, when a guy gets on and slams himself into the seat next to me. I  hear a loud "HEY MAN" from him and the other guy who is sitting to my right, and their fists come together uncomfortably in front my face to meet and execute a weird and elorabate bro-type handshake-dance. Which is fine, y'all know each other, great. But it doesn't stop there. They proceed to have a VERY loud conversation across me, involving the exchange of niceties, asking about mutual acquaintances, telling each other about where they're going, what they are studying in school, what they plan to take in university, about their Nike shoes, the colour of their Calvin Klein knockoffs, the size of their mint condition ballers caps with sticker still affixed, what size of pant is best to hang off their kneecaps the proper way, ...the usual crap. Which is...sort of annoying to be in the middle of, but still tolerable. HOWEVER, its not OK. No, it is not. Because the minute they open their mouths, this huge ball of green gas starts evacuating out of them. Morning breath. Horrible disgusting vomit-inducing bad breathe.

I can't help it. I cough. And cough some more. I wave my fingers in the air and wrinkle my nose. I even go as far as holding my nose.  The problem is, that after a week of being sick, the main symptom of which was a stuffy nose wherein I could not smell anything, I was finally getting better. Which would have been a good thing, except I just had to have the luck of sitting between two dudes who did not understand the concept of personal hygeine.

This is a very full bus and if I could have relocated to another seat, or even a space to stand, I would have. Instead, I did what common sense would dictate: I offered to change places with one of them.

"Oh, no! Its OK!" assures the dude to my left.

"No. It's not OK. I dont want to be in the middle of your conversation, with you talking over my face, with your extremely bad breath directed at my face. I think one thing both of you SHOULD be talking about is personal hygeine, learning how to brush your teeth and clean you mouth before leaving the house in the morning, and also perhaps the possibilities of investing in Colgate before Nike or whatever.

Silence.

"Oh. And this is where I say in the lingo you understand: Jus sayin."