Seasons

The dawning end of your summer is warm.

You stare out the window as your parents chatter in the background. You cannot hear them because the city is folding upon itself. Here, the distortion is so strong a car horn will collapse into leaves, its tense the tense of a splitting tether. And as you watch, the city gradually dissolves into a fleck of dust. No, a period. The end of a season.

The end of your summer, which is cold.

You're on a plane, connecting your headphones. As the flight attendants amble back and forth, you hit play and sink into the rhythm of a bossa nova. The melody slightly rings in your head, trapped. Each echo pulses deeper into exhaustion. The image of the collapsed city steadily fades away until your mind is left with nothing but a blank canvas. And slowly, so slowly, the city begins to reconstruct itself, until—

Ding. Ladies and gentlemen, we have arrived. Welcome to the United States.