New York City, April 17, 2014

★ The fur-trimmed hood, the puffy coat, the scarf — the passing procession of things still not safe to abandon. The airway cooled and tightened with each inhalation, like skin splashed with rubbing alcohol. Fine in the abstract and inexcusable after four full weeks of springtime. Bright morning clouded over into afternoon monotony, and then the monotony developed picturesque fissures and went away again. The steam chimney was still steaming.