Sizzling Sunburns

You are on a holiday. You are at a tropical place, the weather here is always humid despite the temperature. You did not need to pack any pants or jackets or jumpers, but you did anyway. "Just in case," you convince yourself, because this is how unbelievably tropical this place is - it leaves tourists in disbelief.

You lather on the top-grade sunscreen available in the market at the moment - 50+, it promotes and promises. It is waterproof, sand-proof, everything-proof it seems, except not the sun. But you do not know this yet. Your mind is still in its dreamy state. You are on holiday after all, why would you allow yourself to be bothered in any way? So you believe the packaging of the sunscreen. You immediately put some more on only on some areas, the areas that will be exposed once you are in the water, and you make your way down to the nearest pool of water.

And there you float. You float in serenity. You are feeling so serene that time flies past so fast that you end up spending the entire day in that pool of water. And you are satisfied with this, you are satisfied even though your plans to partake in activities other than floating have gone to waste. But it is fine. You do not mind because you spent the entire hot day keeping cool. You remove yourself from the pool and head back into your hotel. This entire time, you have been smelling something fresh sizzling. Some sort of meat you have yet come across, some amazing meat you are yet to taste.

And so you walk back to the elevator, and enter it, dripping wet. You press the button that takes you up to the fourth floor. While the elevator decides that nobody else wants to enter it, its doors close and you begin reading a poster in the elevator advertising the menu of the restaurant on the bottom floor. All the meat on there seems like something you have already tasted though. The elevator doors open, and you exit to face your room.

While you turn the key, the smell gets much stronger. Now, instead of yearning facial reactions, your stomach begins to respond. It growls. In fact, it growls so loud that you feel guilty for causing a monsoon of hunger. Yet you enter your hotel room regardless, and make your way to your fridge. Surely the cheese and bread you bought from the grocery store will suffice, despite this great smell. Plus, the smell will go away because you are indoors, right?

Wrong. The smell is now stronger than ever. You stare down at your cheese sandwich, so bland and flat, and wish that you had a genie to assist you in acquiring this meat. The smell is so strong that it smells as though you just fried this meat in your kitchen. Against all the temptations, you still ignore it. You make it to the sofa and watch television. Food advertisements come on, and the smell still grows. Now, though, along with the smell, comes an antagonizing pain. You look at the source of pain, your bare shoulders, and mistake them for tomatoes.

Yes. All along, that sizzling smell was you. You were cooking. You panic. How could this be? You put sunscreen on your face, neck, oh, blast! You thought your shoulders would have been totally submerged in water, so you did not deem it necessary for sunscreen to be spread there. Nor on your chest. Shame on you. You drive to Coles, and buy aloe vera gel. You spread it on quickly when you get back to the hotel, forgetting how painful sunburns actually are. So you slow down. You try soothing your cooked cells, and walking around indeed becomes soothing. You feel as though you have icicle mist spraying on your body. And then, bedtime. Your bedsheets suddenly feel like sandpaper.

'Apply sunscreen on your entire body every summer, all summer' you write on a note on your hotel fridge.