Footprints

Dave bent down to a squat, took off his hat, and fanned himself. The humidity had jumped up twenty or thirty percent over the last couple hours--High Noon staking its claim--and had his pores springing leaks all across his body. This attempt at wind, a loose agreement between his hat's brim and his wrist, clearly identified Dave as a human out of his element. Brief movement in the atmosphere, tiny puffs to cool his damp skin, served only as an unkind reminder. Then again, the whole footrace itself seemed hellbent on comparing old remedies to this new situation: his oversized sunglasses kept slipping down the slope of his nose; he could feel his neck breathing stains into his uniformed shirt collar; his hair now shaped like a fine-lipped bowl; his socks starting to stick and itch. Dave sucked in the air like inhaling through a wool sweater. Everything in the wake of heat produced its own dew.

After giving up hope on artificial breezes, Dave rolled up his khaki pants to his knees and met his socks with his boots, then stared down at the ground right in front of him. A deep footprint, fresh and shallow-pooled, caused his initial break and now stirred thoughts in his boiling mind. "Just be like the water," his dad used to say and Dave said then, aloud, to no one, using his voice to pinch himself into reality. "Choose first--and most--to be generous. Water is you; give yourself to others so that they too will live without thirst. But when you must be heard, when challenged with vengeance, malice, or desperation, be strong and swift. Measure your anger with need." Here, Dave's father spoke from the past and Dave touched the puddle of water standing in the heel of the print. From his his father's boot.