“Winter. Was it the best time of the year or the worst? How to know for sure? Arturo had just decided that winter could be both. He sat on his boat letting his mind wander, his thoughts drifting every which way, at the same time, contemplating the low clouds, the fog about to envelop him, the heavy mist already beginning to accumulate on everything. He noticed the small droplets forming on his skin, now beginning to drip from his eyebrows, his chin, his nose, his hands. Were it not for the heavy black wool poncho he wore, he’d be soaked and frozen in two minutes. The overall quiet surrounding him gave the sensation there was nothing else alive anywhere near, that he was the only living, breathing thing for miles. Needless to say, that wasn’t the case, given that he was only a few blocks away from his house, but visibility was so limited, he could have been anywhere on the river, or floating weightless, vanished like so much vapor into the clouds. Poof! Gone. To complete the sense of isolation and remoteness, there was no way to tell east from west, or wind direction, or even time of day. Moreover, the water was slack, the tide about to change, and so no way to tell upriver from downriver. The water itself was hardly visible as wisps of misty vapor swirled on its surface, separating, then coming together, staying low to the surface, the overall movement haphazard and ambiguous. Winter is a grey time of the year, he thought to himself, then realized that it wasn’t so much grey as greying, as if the year, same as a person, was aging. Perhaps silvery white, he amended himself, and for that matter, strictly speaking, he remembered it wasn’t even winter. It was the end of May—winter, at least by the calendar, still weeks away.”
From About Face.