The fans have been running non-stop for over an hour and it’s still sweltering in the house. It’s hot in Tacoma. The famously rainy Pacific Northwest hasn’t given up any appreciable precipitation in weeks. 

The lawn is yellow and crispy under my shoes. I throw up the windows at night; clamp them shut again each morning. It feels good to be warm, but my plants are thirsty. It costs money to water and it’s all by hand, with a hose or a watering can.

The house is sizzling. So much so that my computer overheated and shut off while I was trying to write the next installment of The Spaniard’s Gold. It will have to wait until tomorrow, when the air is cool.

Until then, I soak in the coolness of the night like twilight water into the brittle roots of dry grass and wait for the rain.

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Jonny Eberle is a writer in Tacoma, WA. Growing up in the high desert of northern Arizona, he learned a few things about surviving without rain. You can find him on Twitter.