The sun beat on his nape and his shirt stuck to his body, too wet to do any good in absorbing the sweat that trickled maddeningly down the center of his back and soaked the waistband of his pants.
His arms ached. Granite did not easily yield.
The soft ripples of the water mocked him, parading a breeze he did not feel. The pillar blocked what small air movement could be had. To add insult to injury, the hot stone reflected the stifling heat back at him. The path was an oven.
A dragonfly skimming the river caught his eye and he paused, mallet in mid-air and chisel in position, muscles bunching under the folds of his damp sleeves.
What if? he pondered.
He shook the thought out of his mind. Let the mallet land.
Who knew what lurked under the surface of seemingly inviting water. Better hot than drowned.
For Crispina’s Crimson’s Creative Challenge
Na'ama Yehuda 
I like what you’ve done with this. You’ve captured the real heat of that place. I sat there to eat lunch, and my arm burned.
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Not happy that your arm burned but am happy that I was able to capture some of the heat that was contained in this photo! 🙂 Good photo, you see! 🙂
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Thank you, thank you… and thank you. 🙂
My arm is peeling now. I did moisturise it, after a couple of days of using calamine lotion.
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🙂 I feel you. I only have two colors: freckled pale and lobster … 😉
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It’s the first time I have roasted in years upon years. It’s cos I’d not been outdoors enough
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Oh … there’s that, too … Probably only makes things worse for me, too, though at the moment, I’m at little risk of sunburn on my face, at least, between “lockdown hair do”, glasses, and mask … 😉
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Well I’m determined to expose myself, so I don’t burn again. And it’s only May. The sun’s not even at its highest latitude
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Ah, I’m a lost cause for ‘exposure’ — I can be in the sun a bit, of course, but I need sunblock on, and I need to be careful. There were enough ‘excavations’ done on my freckles for those that had decided to go rouge — all the result of being burn to blisters as a child, when there was no sun block yet. I love the sun, but I gotta ‘filter it’ a bit these days. No more sunburns for this gal. 🙂
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Which is such a shame for it is so health-giving. I can’t use block, allergies. But it’s only the right arm that’s red. The left is turning a lovely brown 🙂
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Yay to “lovely brown”! 🙂 I can be outside and enjoy the sun (and I do) – I just need to be sure to have sunblock on and/or be covered (sleeves, hat, etc, on the beach if I’m out for a while). The sun has LOTTA health it in. Just some of the range of the UV stuff makes the damaged DNA in my freckles wanna change ‘a bit more’ into things we don’t like and then need to be dug out … It’s all manageable, fortunately, and a good dermatologist is lifesaver. I have an excellent one who keeps tabs on those freckles that appear ready to go haywire. …. (I got burnt to a crisp every summer as a child, so I’m paying the cost now, decades later). Overall, all good. 🙂 I have a lovely wide brim floppy silly blue sun hat. So there’s that. 🙂
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An advantage of living in the high northern latitudes 🙂
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🙂
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This was brilliant, Na’ama!
I was right there with him, feeling that heat….
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LOL, I bet! I was thinking about you, melting in the CA heat! (we have 80s temps today, but it is not really as bad as it sounds it was where you are!)
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Haha! Today is 84,feels like 96. We are expecting thunderstorms.
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Your “We’re expecting” had me with this image of someone pregnant with a thunderstorm … 😉 And then I was thinking to myself: they probably didn’t take their Beano … 😉 LOL. I’m officially nuts.
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Hahahaha!!
NYNF
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😀 I guess so, eh? 😉
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You know so!
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Okay, OKAY! Yeah, I’m a nut. With mango ice-cream in its belly, but a nut nonetheless.
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Oooh… That sounds rather delish!
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It’s a Trader Joe’s mango and cream bar – a small rectangle of delightfulness. 🙂
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I’ll have to trust you on that one.
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😀 yep. You do have yummy ice-cream in Canada, though. I know. I had some last July … 😉
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So close and yet so far…
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xoxo
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Next time!
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🙂
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