New York City, January 8, 2015

★★★★ Spilled fluids — coffee, dog urine — lay in thick irregular blobs where they’d been captured and solidified in the middle of trying to spread out and flow. The coffee carts were battened down. The cleaners’ door was jammed, opening barely wide enough to squeeze through with a down coat and a full bag. The subway turnstile revolved stiffly; a chalky dryness covered the fingertips: The cold was inside things, causing pain and damage. Some of the snow had sublimated away, but there was still a thin virgin coat up the fire escape and on the roof. Not one person had wandered up that way in two days. The forgotten tub of beer up there was a shin-high chunk of ice, studded with immobile cans.