Canned Heat

They were on what must have been one of the last trains to nearly to arrive at Oxford Road Station. Outside the day was thinking about a turn toward a darker form. It would start off from the hills and then take the long road back into the city just as the last of the traffic raced home to beat it. Outside it was the still the great sweat of the summer that just wouldn’t leave off. But it wasn’t as muscular these days and not so demanding of one’s time. People had been wrestling with it for months though. They had hated it and loved it and now they seemed to pity it. Sorry that it had to go, but accepting of that fact as something quite inevitable like run-down batteries or slipping wallpaper. It had been welcomed, especially at first, but like many welcomed too readily and with too much zeal it had soon forgotten itself, got drunk on its own self-involvement and stayed far too long. It was self-inflicted then and was all anyone talked about anymore. They couldn't help talking about it. It waited all day long on the pavements demanding to be addressed. It dozed on park benches so that no-one else could sit down. It ranged across entire buildings so that windows seemed to melt away in giddy shimmers. It sat on cars and then inside cars. It was immobilizing. It was diurnal but waited up all hours. And now even at its lesser strength it still blazed a way into ‘C’ carriage making everyone tired and irritable. Now, looking out of the windows the passengers had nothing but shear jealousy for those hazy houses that came galloping up close to the line with what seemed like instinctive knowledge that a great rush of wind would follow that train and drench every swollen brick in diesel-coolness.