........long barges drifted downriver, briefly cut in two by the bridge, while the mud-gray water swayed and swelled. not yet mid-november and the trees had lost the balance of the their leaves, their brief flare blown down in piles about their trunks near the highway exit. and the sky was everywhere, it touched the roofs of the city, it obscured the near horizon, it stretched like a great gray sheet to cover every window.
