As the hot air wraps around me and the dog sniffs at a bush, I stand on the sidewalk looking up at the evening sky and see a red star.
It’s the first one I see. Darkness has fallen all around me, but the sky retains just enough of the passed day that there’s only this one star.
Star light, star bright.
I look around while the dog continues his investigations. There are no clouds in the sky. The rest of the stars will be coming out soon. I quickly look down, not wanting them to come out just yet.
It got up to 107 today. The sixty-fifth day in a row above 100. We’re four days away from the record. And the reservoirs are now running dry west of Ft. Worth.
I stop to talk to James on the corner. He has been watering the trees his daughters and I planted just as this hot, dry weather turns fierce.
“How have you been,” he asks. He knows it’s a relevant question for me.
“Fine,” I say. “I am in Houston a lot. How have you been?”
He says that he’s applying for a job with a company that preps rooms before the installation of big medical scanners. It’ll take him on the road, but he has no choice. The market for painting and drywall work has dried up here, and it’s been a difficult summer for his family. His wife is working hard hours at a pharmacy, and his daughters are in elementary and high school. It’s a hard time for him to be away, but it will be steady work.
We shake hands, and he walks me half way down the block to say goodbye.
The sky is black now, lit up by stars. Cygnus is flying across the heavens high in the southern sky. That one red star now has plenty of company.