New York City, March 18, 2015

★★ Little pink and gold clouds glowed benignly in the morning sky — and then, on the next look, there was a dark snow squall blowing sharply north to south, unheralded and unexplained. Almost as abruptly, it faded, and the plain cold clarity returned. The fur hat had to be dug back out of the bin; it was worth considering taking the boots down from the shelf again. “It’s fucking cold. Fuck,” said one of two men who had made the mistake of trying to walk along the street in mere jackets. A traffic cop wore a balaclava. More pink clouds, a little row of them, lined up where the setting sun had gone. The snow seemed like a story someone had told about some other day.