New York City, December 29, 2016

★★ The white fog on the river was the only vaguely bright thing in the soggy darkness of the middle of the day. Sometimes the rain was audible against the building over the sound of the video games; at one point a transparent blob of water ran down on of the rigging ropes swaying outside the window. The fresh air coming in the window was so damp it felt mild at first. Once the day had been fully wasted, the last light came orange and greenish-gold through the newly opened edge of the gloom. It was going to be one of those spectacular makeup sunsets, the brooding clouds now presenting themselves not as the sun’s foes but as helpful partners, catching the spilled color and pouring it back down on the city with excessive generosity: Here, here, we weren’t withholding anything, have it, have it all. A crane in New Jersey flashed like freshly cut copper. Violet masses of lower clouds reared in the north. Amid the wild color, the rift in the west had turned a calm and unassuming blue. One cloud, eggish but pointy, hovered below the others like the kind of spaceships in movies nowadays. Outside after dinner, there was a star in the sky, and another, and two more. The count could slowly get up to a dozen if the eyes waited long enough, in a dark enough and still enough spot, for the fainter ones to reveal themselves.