Killer Gardenias

Yesterday evening was not hot enough to justify using the air conditioner, but too hot for Sluggo to function properly, which led to much frustration and the absence of my usual journal entry. The in-between days such as that are most distressing.

The gardenias have now indeed bloomed. I saw them -- the little white blossoms full of odious vapors. They are real. I wondered if the gardenia scent I smelled a few days ago had come from the mere buds. An early warning? Or, more likely, a threat! Oh, fleurs de mal!

I ate too large a dinner last night. A tragic recipe accident led to the overproduction of something that does not keep well, and in the absence of sufficient mouths, rather than let it go to waste, I performed an ill-advised act of over consumption, compounding my original error. The result has been an unwonted turgidness of the gastric region, which continues to plague me even at this moment, despite my having forgone my usual midnight meal. I resolve in future to pay greater attention in the kitchen.

The day which draws nigh is destined to bring a return of those higher temperatures from which we have enjoyed but a brief respite. Though I will miss the merely balmy afternoon in which I basked Friday, the change will at least make possible the resort to artificial cooling, and thus greater indoor comfort for myself and for Sluggo. Currently, I am delighting in a morning air that is altogether bracing, though, when I fetched the newspaper, I noticed that the side which had lain against the pavement for a mere fifteen minutes was quite warm to the touch. I wonder that the streets are not covered with basking snakes. I was almost tempted to curl up there for a moment, myself, to enjoy the contrast between warm ground and chilly air.

I am uncertain why my verbiage displays a manner so florid this morning, but my suspicion falls on those damned gardenias. I fear that their malign odor may be drawn forth in great quantity by the coming day's heat. My windows shall surely be closed, and remain so, lest the saccharin and shameless scent invade my dreams.

Fragments

Windows go dark one by one. Porch lights wink out, allowing small patches of yards and bits of trees vanish. The stars grow brighter. I think about the June bug. It was at my aunt's house in Gardena. I had never seen a June bug before, and the sight of its bulbous body and the buzz of its wings as it circled the naked bulb of the porch light surprised me. My female cousins squealed and tried to shoo it off when it came near them. Beyond the reach of that light, the old neighborhood was a patchwork of other lights and deep shadows, white wood siding, twisted tree limbs, picket fences, weedy lawns. The place smelled of old houses and grass and parked cars and the tar of the street not yet cooled from the vanished summer sun. I walked into the darker part of the yard and heard the drips falling from a leaky hose bib, and somewhere down the block a dog barked once. I couldn't have been more than five years old. This scene, like a disconnected and inexplicable clip from a movie, just came to me, for no apparent reason. Odd.