At a beer garden in Shibuya over the weekend, a friend and I considered a menu together. “Eternal Summer,” I read aloud from the list of beers. “Sounds nice,” remarked my friend. “Sounds like hell,” I replied.
What was meant to conjure endless days on the beach drinking straight from a coconut instead evoked endless, infernal heat in one of the outer circles of hell.
When did summer in Japan become so miserable? One more year of this and it’ll replace winter as the new indoor season, the time of year when you don’t see friends, instead hibernating and catching up on TV with all the windows shut.