The heat comes in from the windows facing south, even though they are covered with thick heavy dark red curtains. I push up farther and father away from the windows, seal off all but one room, point every fan in the house towards me, and then stay just in that one spot in the room - day after day, October heatwave in LA.

Still the heat comes in further and earlier each day.

Nuclear blasted cells of poison air seeps in through cracks under the door. I wanted to see a while a go, is it cooling down? Opened the door. The skanky smell of concrete, gas, smoke, garbage, all the odors of the city cooks into the sidewalks and stucco walls and stays there all night. It stays in all night then as the new heat comes with morning, the molecules all generate up -- gazillions of recombining atoms, days' accumulation in the air,

Stays here for days, weeks, never washes away as rain is something we remember from last February or March.

Dust and dirt everywhere, leaves of trees, cracks in sidewalks, grime, everything covered with grime, you try not to touch anything as you walk to run a day's errands. A few hours after dark I venture out thinking it will be cooler, but it is not. A strange red haze hovers over all the streets and buildings, making the heat wave night look like an eerie kind of dark daytime.

Your first instinct is to stay inside, hide from the poison, but there is an allure of the hot night. Lights further up the boulevard shimmer in the never ending heat emanating from the streets.

LA. It's home to me. I watch it deteriorate and daydream about crystal clear lakes in Northern Territories. . . .