New York City, June 25, 2014

★★★ Plain summer, glaring and bad-smelling. A washed-down stretch of sidewalk under a scaffold stayed wet and made the air around it even more humid. After a few false attempts, the sun finally came on high and hot. A woman stepped out into it and in a few paces shrugged off her suit jacket, indoors and outdoors proving irreconcilable. The heat subsided by late afternoon; children on scooters buzzed the plaza outside the apartment entrance. In the night, flashes of lightning came white through the blinds.