New York City, August 8, 2017

★★★★ Work backwards from the moment the sinking sun above the roofline of the apartment block merged with the reflection of the reflection of the sinking sun in the windows below it: the day was beautiful yet somehow out of joint. From a desk, near the workday’s end, it had seemed as if the daylight were palpably slipping off toward autumn and darkness; what was left after the commute, though, was still long and bright, till the clouds and the buildings blushed pink together. The sky was clear and simple only after it had been layered with clouds in complex profusion, the highest layer sliding by slowly and a little dizzyingly. People were out on Broadway in the no-traffic lanes, slumped at the tables there. A scaffold was coming down and the sun inside its frame hurt the eyelids. The more the humid morning breeze gusted, the softer and easier it felt.