Micro Fiction Monday: Twenty Degrees and Sunny

Twenty degrees. Sunny. Clear blue skies. A breeze that neither slaps you in the face with sticky humidity, nor pricks your skin with goosebumps. It is the absolute perfection of a day.

And I’m stuck in this hellhole.

In this building, air conditioning is nonexistent. I mean, that’s not entirely accurate—the dining room has air conditioning. The dining room, in fact, is quite pleasant. It’s the kitchen that makes you feel like you’re trapped in the depths of the devil’s lair, at his mercy for eight hours on end.

If someone offers you a job as a line cook, turn it down. You’re better off with the waitstaff, with all the screaming babies and picky eaters it comes with.

I’ve worked here for five years now, which is just long enough to realize how much the job sucks, but also long enough to form bonds with the people who are actually tough enough to last this long in a kitchen job. (Kitchen jobs, I’ve learned, are not for the faint of heart.) It’s long enough to adapt to the closing routine like second nature--learning to flip all the switches and wash all the dishes within five minutes of closing time, dragging the last bag of garbage with me on my way out the door.

Now, the sun has already gone down, and the air cooled from its perfect daytime temperature. I pull a sweater over my head and fling the garbage into the dumpster out back. Before I reach my car, I look up.

The moon is shining, and the stars are out. The cool air is a welcome change from the humidity of my day, and the sky remains as clear as it had been during the day.

I sigh. It’s the absolute perfection of an evening.

Falling into Autumn (BEDS #9)

The title was so cringe worthy that I had to use it.

Now I know that, according to the calendar, it's still technically summer. And I know that, in some places, it still feels like summer.

But here, it does not. Today, it was 11 degrees (Celsius), and cloudly, and overall about as far from summer as you can get without adding multi-colourful leaves and six feet of snow piled on the ground. It was cold, and miserable, and all in all not the day I would typically enjoy.

Maybe it's because I just got back from Florida, where it's a humid 40 degrees every day and 95% of my time was spent outdoors, but for once, I welcomed this lower temperature. I love summer, always have and always will. I adore winter, too. But I always forget how much I appreciate fall until it comes around.

Again, I love summer. I love the heat, and eating ice cream and drinking iced capps. I love wearing tank tops and shorts and sundresses and flip flops--my cutest outfits are made for summer. Even now, when I'm not in school, there's this special feeling about summer that I can't help but love, even though the humidity makes my curly hair go crazy.

Winter, on the other hand, is magical. The snow is absolutely beautiful--especially in December, when everyone has their multi-coloured Christmas lights up and they sparkle against the snow with the street lights. I love the excitement of the first snow fall, how I still run out to taste the fresh flakes on my tongue in the middle of the street. I love curling up inside, with sweaters and blankets and hot chocolate. I love surrounding myself with a zillion blankets at night, and taking a nice, hot shower in the morning. Just the very thought of winter makes me happy, even though I look terrible in hats and the wind makes my face go numb after being outside for ten minutes.

Fall is always the season I overlook. I always view it as an "in-between" season, along with spring. I never liked spring, because the snow melts and makes everything wet and muddy and thus hard to walk around in. Whenever I think about fall in the heat of summer, it always makes me depressed--no matter how much I love winter (and Christmas), I still never want summer to end. The idea that the days will grow shorter (they're already short enough, thank-you-very-much) and the temperature will drop is significantly less than appealing.

But fall is almost a comfort. Fall feels like new beginnings--it's when school starts up again (even though I may no longer be attending), and when all of the television shows kick back up for a new season, with brand new ones joining in alongside them. It's new pencils and new notebooks and new stories and a new year--January will never feel as fresh or as new as September does to me.

So although I hope that Manitoba still has a few warm days left in store, I will be content with my sweatpants and hoodies and big fluffy socks. I will turn off my fan and curl up under my covers, and spend an extra five minutes in the shower because holy moly do I love hot showers. I will enjoy this.

It is, after all, just a new beginning.


QUESTION OF THE DAY: what's your favourite season? Comment down below!

Until later,

- Justyne