New York City, August 15, 2017

★★ What the morning lacked in brightness it made up for by the intensity of the smells on the damp air. A light but increasing rain fell on the short, straight-line walk to get lunch, a rain unimportant enough for umbrellas to be effective against it. There was no going out afterward; the rain got heavier and the day darker. By rush hour it had stopped, save for a few drops leaking from the still-heavy  clouds. Then the round shape of the sun, like an egg yolk, popped suddenly out from the now-revealed edge of the clouds. It finished its descent through an ever-growing, incongruously ordinary stretch of clear blue.