| August Heat | |
|---|---|
| Author(s) | W. F. Harvey |
| Genre(s) | Horror, Mystery |
| Publication date | 1910 |
August Heat is a 1910 short story by W. F. Harvey, about two men whose glimpses, each of the other's possible future, lead them to a strange paralyzed standoff.
On a scorching August day, artist James Clarence Withencroft draws a sketch: "a criminal in the dock immediately after the judge had pronounced sentence", wearing an expression "not so much one of horror as of utter, absolute collapse".
That evening, the heat persisting, Withencroft walks for several hours until he wanders into the workshop of a stonemason, Charles Atkinson. Atkinson exactly resembles the drawing which Withencroft is still carrying in his pocket. To both men’s shock, the model headstone Atkinson has just finished carving bears Withencroft's full name, his date of birth, and that very day as date of death.
The two men agree that – for fear of runaway carts, banana peels, fallen ladders – Withencroft should stay at Atkinson's place until midnight has passed and the date changed. The story ends with Withencroft writing the day's events as Atkinson sharpens some tools: "It is after eleven now. I shall be gone in less than an hour. But the heat is stifling. It is enough to send a man mad."
The story has been adapted for radio three times: twice for the radio series Suspense in an adaptation by Mel Dinelli produced/directed by William Spier (on May 31, 1945 starring Ronald Colman as Withencroft and Dennis Hoey as Atkinson and on March 20, 1948 with Barry Kroeger as Withencroft and Dennis Hoey again as Atkinson) and once for Sleep No More on November 28, 1956 (with Nelson Olmsted reading an abridged version of the story).