When asked about what it is that they like most about Japan, the Japanese will often gladly inform you that one of the top reasons their country is so great is that it counts four distinct seasons in a year. Reaction upon learning that, indeed, most countries of the civilized world also do, ranges from genuinely surprised to incredulous. They also think the song you may know as Auld Lang Syne is an old Japanese ditty, so great at announcing the closing of public places that some smooth-voiced Italian-American singer decided to cover it in English…

Anyway, about the season part: I think they may have been onto something. Four seasons has become a rarity in our pre-apocalyptic, globally-warming world. As I recently discovered, places like Paris have already switched to a much easier to maintain two-season yearly schedule. Translated, they would be something like: Rainy, from September to May and Balls-Hot, from June to August.

If I might have some regrets over skipping Spring on the way, you will not hear one single complaint from me about finally leaving Winter behind. Instead, let me tell you how my first Summer evening of the year went.

Yesterday was the much anticipated downgrade from code red to code orange-ish yellow on the Deadline-o-meter. A moment eagerly awaited by my liver for the past two weeks.

All that was left between me and an entire evening of drunken debauchery were a couple paragraphs of cognitive linguistics rambling and a few chores to take care of. Of course, by the time I finally left my place with one errand still left to run, the clock was ticking 11pm. Hopeful nonetheless, I grabbed my trusty iPod, a half-empty pack of menthol cigarettes, some cash and dashed out, phoning my friends that I would be meeting them shortly thereafter. Note the cigarettes: they are important.

That last mission turned out to take another few eons, and just when I was finally about to head for my meeting point, I accidentally stumbled into Reality and decided that 1am was as good a time as any to call it a night and go home, especially when the following morning entailed an 8am class. To say the truth, I wasn’t really pissed that my plans of a grand evening had gone to shreds: along with partying, sleeping had been a rare occurrence of the past few days, making an encounter with my bed sound more exciting than ever. The night was warm and the walk from the north of Paris, back to my St Germain abode, reminded me of some of my best student memories of night strolls through Paris.

I was getting within reach of the Seine river, surrounded by Parisians being merry under the moon, walking fast but enjoying every bit of the scenery along the way, when I reached for the old pack of cigarettes I had retrieved from a forgotten corner of my bedroom just before leaving.

Now, for all practical purposes: I don’t smoke anymore. A couple cigarettes a week when going out, at most. But crossing the Pont des Arts covered in drunken revelers, with some sickeningly deep house beats resonating in my ears, I figured I may as well close the night with a few puff of my favorite brand of prissy menthols.

And then, about halfway through the bridge, the world suddenly started playing in slow-motion. Moving my legs at the same speed only seemed to propel me a fraction of the way it should have. The people I was walking by seemed equally affected: their motions were noticeably slower, their lips barely moving, despite evidence of raucous noises still being produced, muffled by my headphones. Above all, the strangely entrancing tribal overtones of the drums and soothing piano harmonies playing in my ears, reenforced that eery feeling that I had just stepped into a sort of bizarre, yet lively, otherworldly dream.

It was lovely.

Now, I may have been semi-delirious: I was still lucid enough to realize that no amount of warm-weathered nostalgia was a satisfying explanation for my sudden arrival in Gonzo territory. That’s when I took another drag from the cigarette in my hand and remembered exactly when I had last seen that pack of cigarettes. It would appear that, quite a few months ago, in a moment of dire desperation stemming from a lack of any proper rolling paper at my apartment, some cigarette enveloppes may have been recycled for the production of a very different sort of smokable, resulting in a few deceitfully cigarette-looking products finding their way to a corner of a shelf where they were promptly forgotten about.

And this, your honor, is how it all happened.