New York City, May 28, 2014

★★ Chilly and ominous. The first mosquito of the season, crouched on the wall behind the open headboard, died in a smear of someone’s bright red blood. The six-year-old had woken up a nosebleed despite the humidity; now the two-year-old announced I’m bleeding and steered his scooter into a concrete planter so that he was shedding blood too. Flecks of moisture were blowing. An out-of-service train crawled through the station, lights on in the empty interior, without stopping. The shade on the streets was greener than usual, as if instead of clouds the sun were passing through some immense and distant leaf canopy. The wet flecks intensified, went away, and came back, never resolving into anything as wholesome as rain.