100 Words: Neither stately nor plump

Neither stately nor plump on my daily procession to the water, head almost empty, answering the pressure of reality with air. This morning mild morning air everywhere; this evening a blue light in a blue shade on the lakefill thronged with young people looking out at the water but mostly at each other, very few of them masked, the immortals. The pathways tagged with earnest chalk; coming up the hill an array of brown and Black children on their bikes, none older than eight, all masked, in cheerful defiance of their adults’ trailing gloom, rolling right over the hashtags. Bloom.