New York City, June 25, 2013

★★ In the shade of morning, on the way to school, the air was still and not yet hot. Windows were tipped out and open, all up the apartment building’s flat glassy face. Soon enough, the direct rays worked their way down to the street, and sweat started to dampen the upper lip. The higher the sun went, the thicker the haze appeared. Afternoon brought not even a false prospect of relief; the most serious of the clouds were solid white at the top, dissolving into blue shapelessness at the bottom. A mockingbird perched imperiously on a television aerial. If it was a mockingbird — the longer one looked, the more the eye faltered in the glare. Then the aerial was empty, but a beat later, the bird crossed the roof deck in a long falling glide, with an obliging flash of the white bars on its wings.