New York City, April 11, 2013

★★★ The cool grayness was a soothing change, at first. The temperature and intensity of everything had lowered a little. With every hour that the warm days receded, as the light never changed, the novelty wore off: the chill was just chilly, the dimness was just dim. In the neutral late light, a film crew was out shooting a woman emoting in a doorway, and a photographer was shooting with a long lens at a couple walking stagily down a street. The book tables on Broadway were battened down, and the view ahead looked somehow smoky, like an oncoming wall of rain, though on inspection it was still clear and dry. The wind had blown a bag of trash off a heap by the curb, and a passing woman detoured to pull it back out of the street, to the incredulity of her two young charges.