NYC Smoggy Skies Chosen to Match NYC Sidewalks

“NYC– you can make it there? You can make it anywhere!”

“Nebraska– you can make it there, congrats! Corn Husker.…”

Adair was sitting on her back porch, staring whistfully, fitfully, frightfully, into the northern, western, midwestern, middling, fair to midden, muddlin, clear, yet muddy skies

The skies were muddy because Adair couldn’t read her future– in these stars. Nebraska stars.

Otherwise, the skies were clear– frighteningly clear. Frighteningly clear, because portentious– of nothing.

Adair’s mother steps out on the back porch. She’d meant to leave Adair alone to her thoughts, but seeing Adair so abstracted worried her. Abstracted– alienated. Or about to be alien abducted. Adair was staring into the skies. Adair’s mother deeply hoped Adair would star in the skies.

“Adair, darling, you are so young.” (Adair was a few years above the age of consent.) “You’re so vulnerable.” (The hitch in this one is Adair is vulnerable, whether within the notable Nebraska “higher education”, “public education” system, or vagabonding herself to a Greyhound Bus, a Greyhound Bus disgorging itself into NYC Grand Central Station.) “You’ve so much to learn.” (A caveat to be added is everyone has so much to learn. Why the heck would Adair’s mother single out her daughter, on this portentious night? Has not Adair’s mother much to learn?)