New York City, September 2, 2013

[No stars] The fog on the river was not a dramatic fog, just a thinnish and mediocre one. Nevertheless it was clinging. The children took a lap or two around the building deck and went into the playroom. On the other side of the glass door, in the gym, people were spending the early middle of the holiday pounding away on the treadmills. Outside, the humid air and the stillness of the streets created a thick hush, like water in the ear canals. Old puddles, left from who knows when, lined the curb by the Gray’s Papaya. The sweat that rose might as well have been sweated into plastic wrap. Eventually, there would be an undramatic rain shower. Eventually, there would be a little sun, even — insultingly little, and too late to do any good.