At the risk of the curve, over the asphalt, a house appears, for a few minutes, in the middle of the road—the pavement damp with piss, bathed in blood, strewn with ashes—then it fades, but leaves a trace: scraps of cloth, cardboard, wood, a bit of life dragging itself across the ground, between the elevated lane and the fence that seals off the square, a sliver of green that still resists, squeezed between building and highway. Soon someone arrives, pulling a cart, drops off a battered black sofa; before long, someone else uses it, stretches out, smokes the last bit of a cigarette, at ease, then dozes, while the cars graze past him; nearby, the sensor of a garage shrieks, warning of a truck inching out, nearly running over a pedestrian; and on the street behind—the one where a storefront and a wobbling inflatable doll promise excellent deals—a police car corners a young man, another arrives, now many of them frisk him, weapons drawn. There’s a guy across the way watching it all, recording on his phone; the officers find nothing, but just in case, keep him pinned to the wall, hands on his head. Someone peeks out of a condo window, trying to figure out what’s going on, while a neighboring couple eats lunch on their cramped balcony; down below, an old woman reaches into a bag, throws food to the pigeons, they surge forward, soon take off again. At the corner market, the boy asks the old men at the concrete table built for games; now he takes advantage of the rising flow of people returning from work, rushing toward the underground, where a packed train is arriving—one passes, then two, then ten—until it’s his turn to enter, close his eyes, and wait for the ride to end. It’s rough; the cold has set in outside. Between the metal barrier set on Bank’s front step and the curb, between the leftover patch of ground and an improvised blanket, a group warms itself, though I doubt the cold lets up. In another corner, someone lights a fire; someone lights a pipe; smoke spreads through the air, bothering those who walk past, but not those drinking at the bar. Around the tables on the street, the samba plays; not everyone drinks, but everyone dances. Night falls, the fire dies out, and lights from the endless windows illuminate scattered points of the view, though from here not much can be seen anymore. The sun rises behind the building; during the night, someone left the silvery carcass of a car on the sidewalk. The scenes repeat in different ways, multiply, conurbate—cities forming within the city—while the speech of one to another is mediated by spare change…