New York City, December 22, 2016

★★★ Sinister shadowy clouds filled the view to the north, and the radar on the weather app was blue with snow outside the city. All that the dark mass produced, though, was a lumpier, paler sheet of clouds. Big birds circled under it in the distance, bracing against the wind without flapping, taut and at times held still by their relative motion. The lumps in the sky smoothed out, and brightness came in from somewhere. By the end of lunchtime, the five-year-old had bounced out of his morning sickbed and the clouds had dissolved entirely. Benevolent light shone on the rim of a trashcan and glinted off top-story Beaux-Arts window frames. The breeze down the avenue was stiff but, for the moment, still mild. That moment expired as the sun left the streets, and the wind quickly got back its bite.