Steam Heat

Warning: Very honest, all names changed to protect privacy.

As a child, I was afraid of heat. Hot showers, steam rooms, saunas -- any confined space with steam and near-scalding water made me nauseous. The instant I started to sweat, boiling bile rose from my belly.

It’s different now. Now, I believe in heat. I love running in the summer, I love laying the sun. I enjoy the suffocating humidity of August in New York, I adore the burning of too-hot miso soup. I delight in sweat. I love dancing so furiously that I am coated with sweat; I love embracing a dance partner and sharing that heat. I love feeling my heart race, and the drip of water sliding down my forehead. I love the taste of salt.

What changed, I wondered. I poked at that childhood fear, teased it, tickled it. Why did I feel vertigo on tile floors?

And then, I saw her face. She was a beautiful woman, with oil-black hair, her features handsome, voice proud. She is an artist, and I see her licking her lips, clutching at water, grasping at cold, desperate hope.

Beautiful Norma, the main character in The Midnight Sun, a classic episode of the Twilight Zone.

I had watched Norma die.