New York City, June 6, 2017

★ The rain was coming down just hard enough to keep the pavement glossy. Some fatter, louder drops fell on the schoolyard, but they may have just been blown down from the treetops. The rain paused for a while and a drizzle replaced it. At lunchtime, or what would have been lunchtime, it was a forbidding, steady shower. That stopped too, leaving little puddles marking the rhythm of the machine that had torn up the street. Even the rainless interludes were raw and no brighter, and there was always more drizzle behind them.