I went around the windows looking for air leaks, and discovered that most of them actually had condensation holes. I stuffed paper napkins in the holes, ousting a small gecko from one of them. still the smog gets in here and there and we have faintly sore eyes, lips, nostrils.

workers on the cherry pickers and construction sites without respirators. crowded streets. air the colour of milky tea. across the water somewhere peat-land smoulders on and on.