2014年8月15日金曜日 - 
Tony ： Summer: 1980 - 2014
When I was 10 years old a heatwave hit my hometown. There was no rain for weeks and weeks and weeks. Dogs slept on dead grass wherever there was shade. Sunburned kids shambled to the corner store for frozen treats. The heat was powerful. Mirages gained strength until we could look across the water to Vancouver and see a mirror image of the city hanging inverted and shimmering in the sky.
The heat intensified and people stopped going outside. Cars were ovens, and their seats were frying pans that eagerly burned the tender skin of children who wore shorts.
Wildfires raged across the country. Smoke hung in the air, a choking mockery of clouds that stung our eyes as we dreamt of rain. I couldn't have imagined a worse summer. It seemed like the end of days.
I moved to Japan
I was naive. I knew nothing of humidity. I'd never lived in the heat island of a huge city, a concrete behemoth, like Osaka. My childhood reminiscence was exactly that, a child's story. Now that I lived in Japan, I realized that Japanese people endure summers like the one from my childhood every single year!
Thank goodness for air conditioning.
shambled：よろよろ歩いていた
Mirages：蜃気楼
inverted：逆さにした
shimmering：(陽炎などが)ゆらめく
intensified：増強する
raged：猛威を振るう
choking：息苦しくさせる
mockery：嘲る
stung：チクリと刺した
end of days：この世の終わり
fiery：火のような
benchmark：基準
naive：世間知らず
behemoth：巨大なもの（聖書ヨブ記に出てくる巨獣から）
reminiscence：思い出