New York City, October 9, 2012

★ Monotonous but impotent. A dream of being tonsured faded into a dawn of cold seeping through the windows and the open-frame headboard, to the crown of the head. Outside was gray and a fine, irritating drizzle, drizzle, drizzle. Almost not there, yet everywhere. Wind rattled the plastic sheeting taped around a mattress standing upright by the curb. The drizzle and the low light and the cloudiness of the plastic made it impossible to tell whether it was an old mattress or a brand-new one. At dusk it was drizzling again, or still, whichever. The droplets were invisible except where they passed through the headlights of a cab, turning right, forcing its way through a full crosswalk.