New York City, September 20, 2016

★ If the gray out the window looked no better than what had been outside the day before, the morning air was at least a bit less impenetrable. The sun gained control in late morning, but was uninterested in keeping it. The first step out of the restaurant with takeout lunch sent the eye skyward, looking for a threat in the renewed gloom there, yet a few yards away, sunshine was hitting the sidewalk. The afternoon light turned sinister and yellow, and the air lost whatever freshness it had briefly acquired. The sunset sky was striped and quilted, a glowing lovely surface almost as near and fully as irrelevant as a stage backdrop. What mattered was the dense, unpleasant night that followed.