It breaks

Finally the relentless heat of the city is turned down, if only for a short while. Wilted window boxes momentarily recover. Drops fall heavily from above, making extravagant splashes on beer tables and window screens. The summer rain, somehow wetter than in other seasons (as if making up for the parching sun), wrings every drop of moisture from the atmosphere.

Pavements sizzle like hot frying pans under the cold tap. The smell of wet tarmac, blistered paint from windows and doors, of plants released and something muskier and even more primeval, is inhaled in deeply. Where before breaths were short and shallow, conserving energy, voices stifled by the billowing heatwave; now carefree voices carry over the water, like crowds of day trippers in rowing boats.

The break works it's short lived magic. Life is but a dream.