This was the end of the day, leaving Greenwich Village, after we’d spent a banner afternoon deep in the heart of the city.

Even at the time I felt that it was a bookend moment: it was goodbye to The Village, goodbye to the city, goodbye to the life and the selves that we were leaving behind there.

Soon afterward came Sandy. She inhaled the idea that was our New York into the curl of her furious grin, and the city slept.

In that quiet, were our ghosts still marking the streets with their footsteps, laughing, smiling, and dancing amidst her whispers?