Seasons Are Transient

The cumulus clouds neatly puncture through the heat haze rising from the smoldering asphalt. They cruise at a speed slow enough that pedestrians stop to admire them, hovering above their sweaty scalps as they gallivant through the streets. Floating through a late-July cerulean sky, the clouds are a visual reminder of the vivacity of summer, but also of its ephemerality. Soon, just like the clouds, summer will dissipate.

Much like patience, seasons are transient, and not long from now will summer depart and make way for fall, when the air becomes crisp, the days are shortened, and the world becomes to shed the evidence of its hedonism during the dog days.

I peer out the seventh-floor window from room 756 at the Community Commonwealth Hospital, imagining one of the clouds coming and placing its airy tip up against the glass, seemingly mocking my confinement. I sit on a cold, rigid metal chair. Today is the fourth day I've come to visit my ailing father, and the four walls of his room are beginning to sneer at my repeated arrival. It is as if they know that outside the sullen halls of the hospital there is an intrepid citywide agenda for its citizens to simply have fun; to indulge in the jubilant atmosphere that summer entails, to imbibe on effervescent drinks, to twirl and sway to infectious pop tunes, to bask in the sun's yellow shimmer while sprawled across a fluffy blanket, fingers intertwined with those of an ardent lover.

The days are consistently inviting everybody to have a good time.

Inviting enough to convince Andrew – my forgiving yet cautious ex-boyfriend – to apprehensively give me another chance. Having apparently been influenced by the joyous summer days and amorous summer nights, Andrew had succumbed to a year's worth of unyielding pleas and passionate notes. The time couldn't be more ideal. With the generous sunlight of the long days coupled with the surprising yet welcomed summer rain showers, the landscape was lush and picturesque. It lent itself to conjure buried emotions, to resurface the yearnings that had once proliferated desire, emotion and romance. To rebuild what last year's brittle fall and the decaying winter had almost demolished.

Our own agenda, paralleled to that of summer's, consisted of candle-lit dinners and potent mezcal followed by a tempestuous wallowing on top of bedsheets. The enthrallment of each other's bodies would serve as the delayed expulsion of internalized resentment, mostly on his part. The triple-digit temperatures of July would serve as a pretext for our bare bodies, but there was no pretext in early March of the previous year when I lapsed on our monogamy and had participated in a devious love affair. Having undertaken the Herculean task of repairing the damage and resolving the tarnished trust between Andrew and I, the summer was intended to serve as the season for rebirth, for love to once again be in bloom, the unfurling of enchanting emotions and the retracting the wounded ones.

But instead, I found myself exactly where the wounded are hosted. The dainty and polite nurse enters the dingy hospital room and proceeds to take my father's vitals, which weren't necessarily favorable. On the contrary, all seemed to be saturated in health and life outside – a crumbling house in disrepair situated in a thriving and beautiful neighborhood. Also on the outside, my opportunity to mend my relationship with Andrew. And just like sherbet at the hands of a languid five-year-old, my elusive opportunity was slowly melting away, dripping down anxious fingers.

Andrew didn't appear to be angered with me having to tend to my father, but there was a noticeable annoyed timbre in his voice when he solely replied "alright." The linear intonation was new. Normally, Andrew's voice was underscored by friendliness, amicability. But today, the tone had been foreign and distant. His disyllabic response, while short, had apparently created a vast emotional distance between us. I had already charted that territory before, and it is something I wasn't ready to do again.

As the nurse begins to conclude her tasks, she turns to me and says: "your father's vitals indicates that his health isn't improving. I'm sorry to relay. I'll inform the doctor and check back later tonight."

As she exits the gloomy room, I turn to look at my father. I study his sunken face. It looks like a beaten-down cushion hallowed by the unyielding pressure of mere mortal life. His vacant, lifeless eyes stare at something far, far in the distance, so distant from here in this gloomy room that I can't even see it myself. I stand to grab a small plastic cup, fill it with water, and place it on my father's thin, cracked lips. They resemble dried, stale, old red licorice. Water cascades down toward the tip of his chin, whatever he isn't able to swallow, and drips down his wrinkly neck. As I clean the dripping water with a thin napkin, I imagine salty drops of sweat tumbling down the cheerful faces of the downtown vagabonds, their joy to substantial for them to be annoyed by the streaks of saline.

And it's saline that I wanted to taste after having kissed Andrew's body throughout the hours of the night. Instead, the faint taste of sanitizer lingers on my tongue. The staleness in the air. The frigid walls. The decaying souls. The diminishing warmth.

I watch my father's fingers collapse into a fist as he falls into a deep slumber, and take out my phone from my pocket to call Andrew.

The phone rings. No answer. A redial. Still no answer.

I walk over to the window to peer outside. A few blocks away, down at the downtown plaza, people are convening to listen to a local jazz band play underneath flourishing apple trees. Others are purchasing funnel cakes from a local vendor. Mothers trail behind their wondrous children chasing florescent butterflies. Fathers sit at benches sipping on foamy overpriced beer.

And all throughout the grassy plaza, lovers hold hands, embrace and plant kisses on each other's cheeks.

I call Andrew again. The call goes straight to voicemail.

Down at the plaza, people begin to walk toward Main Street. A local film preservation organization is screening a classic and iconic romantic monochrome film there. They jubilantly spring over to Main Street from the plaza.

They are transient. Summer is transient. Seasons are transient.

As is Andrew and my relationship.

I come to terms with that as I press my index finger up against the grimy window. The cloud's airy tip has left it slightly cold, and the contrast from the sweltering weather feels nice. But its brief, and shortly after, the heat begins to bother the tip of my finger.

Everything around me seems to be fleeting except the disheartening atmosphere around me and the summer heat. Even my intentions for the summer are fleeting. I begin to feel my resolutions for summer to slither down into oblivion. They try and grasp on to the last remnants of hope in my heart, but they are to fickle to sustain their grip. I turn around and look back at my father, who is sickly deep in sleep, and I know that my duty as his son is to be here; to withstand the daunting nature of this hospital room, to acquaint myself with the putrid olfactory of the halls, to be idle as the hours reoccur and repeat.

Summer has always been my favorite season. The vibrancy of the glaring sun, the sweet smell of nectar emanating from my mother's lively garden, the swift nature of the minutes that rapidly came and went. Of all the seasons, summer was the one that commenced with such overture and departed with such majesty.

As I worthlessly watch through the window again, a familiar figure catches my eye. Over by the lined-up food trucks on Main Street, where the moviegoers are beginning to unfold fleece blankets, I see Andrew leaning up against the trunk of a charming tall apple tree holding a wooden picnic basket. He looks at his phone, and raises it up against his right ear, the one that is slightly smaller then the left one. His mouth briefly moves, and then a tanned-skinned, lean and attractive man walks over to him. They embrace for what seems like an eternity.

And with that, summer is officially in transit. It is now transient. All things are, and always will be.

They are always fleeting, moving forward. Moving on.

I take a few steps back and glare out at the open, cerulean mid-July sky.

The culumus clouds can be seen far in the horizon. The sun is settling in for the day, but not without putting on a scenic show of light pink hues and deep purple tints. It's way of waving goodbye.

I hear my father roughly cough. He marginally opens his eyes and vacantly stares up at the discolored perforated ceiling tiles. I go to sit back down on the cold, rigid metal chair and smile at him, hoping to evoke some sense of comfort in him.

Outside, summer is beginning to end, along with its invitation to have a good time, to bask in its yellow shimmer, to drink effervescent cocktails. It is transit, like all seasons, and soon fall will arrive to ensure that all remnants of summer will begin to fall like the leaves from apple trees down at the plaza.