New York City, July 15, 2015

[No stars] People walked down Broadway in the stale wet gray air of morning with their hair incompletely dried. The rain jacket, breathable or not, was smothering the hand that held it. Thunder came from a yellowish sky in late morning; the clouds touched, or edgelessly absorbed, the mast of the Freedom Tower. A mourning dove perched upright and hawklike. Now there was visible lightning and sharp cracking thunder, as raindrops filled in more and more of the sheltered dry metal of the fire escape. It was probably a bad idea to be on the fire escape. The rain fell and passed and left a foul and stifling afternoon. By rush hour it was cooler, as long as whatever one did with rush hour didn’t involve moving much. Sundown arbitrarily brought clear light and shades upon shades of purple in the clouds, as if to underscore how welcome the expiration of the day was.