New York City, February 26, 2014

★★★ Fine snow was blowing up through the clogged traffic on Amsterdam. From the 27th floor, only the outline of a cruise ship really backed up the broker’s assurance that the river really would be in view out there, somewhere. The flakes turned bigger and quickly put a white layer on everything that wasn’t moving and some things, like hoods and coat sleeves, that were. Snow gathered on the railing outside the walkup apartment where that apartment’s broker was not. Inside at last, the fifth-floor radiator heat was stupefying. The dead roaches looked well dried. For a moment, the snow seemed to have cleared, but it had just gotten fine again and a little bit stinging. In the span of a train ride downtown, though, the clouds did break apart. A last few flakes drifted from the blue sky. The afternoon, sharply bright and sharply cold, belonged to a completely different day. There were not enough clouds for the peach light at sunset to catch on, so it settled for catching on a banking airplane and the window facets of the apartment tower.