New York City, March 22, 2016

★★★ There was no way to make the case that the light wool coat had not been the necessary choice, but in direct sun it was still possible to imagine feeling stifled and to resent it. Red plastic shopping bags lit up in the space between their handles and their contents. A cold-dried fingertip split open and bled freely onto the computer’s trackpad. The light moved slowly and stolidly across the scenery even as the high clouds went through drastic changes, from contrails to curling fractal patterns to shapeless wisps. Then the sky was wholly clear. More than half a mile away down Fifth Avenue, the Washington Square Arch caught the sun and declared itself.