New York City, January 20, 2016

★★★ People were still armored against the cold, but it had lost its ferocity. A chunky crystalline icefall reached from a leaking hydrant spout to the ground, where a sheet of ice entombed a discarded page of newspaper. Gradually blue in the sky faded out. The pretzel vendor outside the school shifted his weight a little from foot to foot. The sky darkened, though it was hard to tell whether to blue or to gray.