It is the kind of wind that bites through layers and stings skin. Blowing newspapers off their stands, the lids of venti lattes refusing to stay on, piping hot and burning your tongue. The sort of wind that makes you zip up your down coat a little more, wish you'd stayed in bed that morning. Faked a sudden illness.
Fog rolls in thick and low over the bay. An endless gray stretching across the entire city, positively dripping with condensation; calm before the storm. Placent. You should have grabbed an umbrella. The fog is a dramatic contrast to the havoc of this weekday morning downtown. People flying over the city must think it looks so serene, ineffectual- chaos. This street is buzzing with anxiety. You grip your latte tighter and check the time on your phone. If you rush, you can squeeze four more minutes before you have to go to work. Greet the b****y receptionist and listen to the sound of your own success clacking on the marble. The noise makes you cringe. Three minutes.
If you could be one of those people on a plane over this city, you would fly as far as you could. Take off and never look back. You would roam wildly, ecstatically- in high school you used to dream of Northern Europe, Africa, Central America. Seeking beauty in places that your mother’s friends would not call beautiful. A car honks and several men yell out the window, their catcalls lost to the wind and traffic. Steam from your coffee dissipates as quickly as wanderlust does. You must look so f***ing cool, standing against this building with your blowout and business casual. The type of woman girls caught glimpses of out of car windows on the way to school in the mornings. You are the woman your teenage self wanted to be. This wind is so d--- cold, and there is no way to make a puffy jacket look professional.