Journal Entry 11.23.2011. 4:30am.

I stepped out into a morning leeched of color by the wet clouds perched on rooftops.  At the corner, Hasidic toddlers were being ushered off a yellow bus and into the preschool.  They stumbled on tiny legs, uncalibrated like miniature stilts they were getting used to.  All of the ushers were women; all of the stumblers were girls.  All were stockinged and bonnetted.  There is a piece of paper stuck to the glass door of the Hasidic preschool: Woman Entrance.  Hasidim do not shake hands with the opposite sex.

The post-rain fog is heavy.  It drags tobacco smoke down, filtering it through the rusted steps of the fire escape.  Low clouds on the East River filter themselves through bolts, beams, and ribs of bridges.

Tattered plastic bags are tangled on tree limbs and flutter in the breeze as if some biblical flood had once covered this entire city.  I guess there was a flood, just a human one.