A walk in the winter woods at the end of the day. The once green turrets of the trees empty in the lavender sky. The dance of shadows at their feet falling still. A final photograph, then home—a martini and the evening news.

Crushed beneath concrete, the cries of children silenced. Paper beats rock. Rock beats scissors. Scissors beats paper. Sins of the father.

What did Marilynne Robinson write? In The Death of Adam? “So far as we can tell, only we among the creatures can even form the thought that the world is cruel.”

And tomorrow? Another walk into the woods. The fetishism of beauty. Then dinner out, dining in the tombs of the living.