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Abandoned Brooklyn lot down by the Hudson... photo by Scott Irvine

Scott Irvine shooting a photo, stood there thinking it should be me on the other side of the camera, the guy is so full of expressive character and stick thin Brooklyn style, his photo's are the best, check them on www.scottirvine.net

NEW YORK, SATURDAY, JUNE 15, 1940, 9 a.m....

An octopus? He pulled out his knife and opened his eyes, it was a dream. No, it wasn't. The octopus was a reality, it was draining him with its suckers; it was the heat. He was sweating. He had gone to sleep about one o;clock; at two the heat had waked him.

He had plunged into a cold bath and had then got back into bed without drying himself. Almost at once the furnace had resumed its roaring under his skin, and he had begun to sweat again. At dawn he had fallen asleep, he had dreamed that the house was on fire.

The sun must be pretty high by this time, and not for a moment did Gomez stop sweating; he had been sweating uninterruptedly for forty-eight hours. 'Christ!' he muttered, passing a damp hand over his streaming chest. This was more than mere heat; it was a sickness of the atmosphere:

the very air was in a fever, the air was sweating, one sweat with a carapace of sweat. He must get up; he must put on his shirt and start sweating in that. He said: 'Hombre!' I haven't a dry shirt left!' His last, the blue one, was soaked because he had had to change twice a day.

None lef: he would have to wear this sopping, stinking rag until his things came back from the laundry. Cautiously he got to his feet, but he was unable to prevent the flood. Drops crept down his flanks like lice, tickling him. His crumpled shirt lay across the back of the armchair, a mass of creases.

He felt it: nothing ever gets really dry in this bitch of a country, his heart was thumping; his mouth was parched, as though he had got drunk last night. He put on his trousers, went across to the window, and pulled aside the curtains. From the street the light glared up at him, dazzling white as a catastrophe; thirteen more hours of daylight.

Opening page of Troubled Sleep - Jean Paul Sartre random picking from Mercer Street Books sunday june 16th 2008 and God it was hot and no sleep was to be had and the streets were baked and maddening, hell yes