New York City, June 26, 2016

★★★ The heat was not as forbidding as the glare in the sky made it seem. The sidewalk was underpopulated but getting iced coffee meant cutting through a throng. Little things had baked dry or withered on the sidewalk: bird droppings, fruit scraps, parts of a dead bird. An old gutter puddle, having settled into clarity, was now beginning to cloud up with stagnant growth. The child who hadn’t wanted to go out now wanted to stay out, and the child who’d been willing to go was unwilling to stay.