Imperial

Scorcher

2 scorcher In the summer twilight, a couple of hours after dinner, we like to take a walk. The birds have turned in. The air has finally cooled, but the crickets and katydids are getting so worked up that the lightning bugs catch fire a few feet above the lawn, just where we left them when we were kids. Now and then we pass another couple from one of the green, old, more or less identical streets of our neighborhood as they move through the atmosphere, mystical and obscure, their voices softly registering the news of the summer. Good evening, we say to each other. Lovely night, isn’t it? What a scorcher, we say with gratitude and affection for this shared mystery of being human on this dark little planet, on one of the slender, gracefully swirling arms of one of the smaller galaxies. ...