Summertime

Winter waltzes out and in walks the summer, resplendent in its robes of sunshine and silk, bringing with it the merest hint of a sultry breeze. Icicles fall like deadly teardrops; frozen rivers shatter into a million shards that meander gently downstream, and the first few blades of grass break through the fading blanket of snow.

And before you know it the sickly sun of winter has become a fiercely blazing orb that burns your arms and back; birds return en masse and everywhere the water, as blue as the sky, shimmers with cool promise.

You sit with an iced drink in the shade and find patterns in the clouds, but at night you twist and you turn, sweat drips from your brow, and the sounds from outside are all that you can hear.