It was a hundred-and-something the instant the sun hit ground.  It was an additional degree each half hour till, when he stepped out of a village meeting hall at around four in the afternoon, all visibility was distorted by shimmering shivering air.  He squinted in his sunglasses.  He needed to see, to focus on something in order to withstand any longer the searing force of the beating heat.  He dropped himself back onto the meeting hall’s stone steps when his gaze landed on a lizard crawling to get under his shoes.  He fought fear to keep his feet in place so that the lizard could rest under the shade made by his right shoe.  It was suffocating heat, but he knew he was helpless to the tendency in him to look for the smallest of ways to be of service.