New York City, November 5, 2017

★ The extra hour, which was to say the already depleted hour, was dim gray, and the next hour was grayer. Figures hunched up against the darkness as if it were cold. Something began dampening the outdoors and a gray blur smudged away the river and now and then parts of buildings. From the angles where it wasn’t invisible, the drizzle was raking down and sideways. The marathoners made their slow, grave way around the sidewalks wrapped in ponchos, with their foil blankets peeping out around the edges. Water beaded on the plastic sheeting of the pedicabs swarming in search of debilitated runners. The blowing drops made the civilians trying to be festive for their runners just wince themselves. The paper of the bakery sack got too soggy to be trusted to bear its burden unsupported.