Real Human Heat

takes Place outside the self by shifting energy through the face in a pro- cess called Convection. Convection, or displaced Conviction, is duplicitous. It relies upon an ever-regenerating supply of Guilt, which functions as an invisibly comfortable catalyst in the Adult Motivator to produce Heat- related elements and byproducts including but not limited to Shyness, Fear, Cruelty, Dullness, and Disaffection. Guilt is derived from mysteriously mundane motion that turns toward concepts of future place, much as the borscht-pink jaws of a drunk in the stands at a baseball game work at a cheek load of sunflower splinters without regard for the sun’s steady gnaw on the atmosphere.
Not all Heats radiate. Some Heats ooze. Should a child’s nose drip snot, for example, an adult, if in the vicinity, may offer an absorbency; in the event of no absorbency, the adult may offer his sleeve. The child may accept. He may coat the adult’s sleeve with clots of snot that look and feel like slugs. One such slug may cling to the adult’s bare wrist. If the adult is in any way disgusted, he will hide his disgust. He may even nearly smile. This is called Quiet Heat.
All Heats can be transferred only from bodies whose temperatures differ; furthermore, when transfer occurs, it is always in the direction of the colder body. Consider: The black worn for the dead. The lover’s meaty arm hoist- ing his lover by the ribcage from a wet unknown. A body is only a body if it recognizes itself as such: that is, if the mind within it is capable of imagining fires of shame.