It took a child. It was 103 degrees. Note both facts
A 14-year-old boy saved a 76-year-old woman with dementia who had wandered miles in 103F heat. He is being honored, correctly. Now the rest of the report.
Cars passed her. Adults passed her. The one who stopped had been on this Earth fourteen years — the exact length of time it takes for a person to not yet have learned to look away. Enjoy him while he lasts.
The heatwave that nearly took her contributed to the deaths of at least two dozen people. It was described as record-breaking, a word that no longer means what it did, because the records now break annually, on schedule, like a lease.
The boy did everything right. The thermometer is still climbing. Winter, as always, is unbothered — mostly because winter, increasingly, declines to show up.