DC By the Book

Excerpt: I stood on the threshold watching the quiet early morning.... No traffic passed, and no one strolled along the sidewalks.... above the rooftops and leafy trees, a corner of the National Cathedral loomed, my private parapet. An airplane cut across the heavens, red lights on the wingtips in contrast to the faint white stars. A mockingbird sang in some treetop blocks away, the changing patterns of its stolen song designed to attract a mate to nest. Crickets kept time. But all else was still as if painted on some universal mural, and I felt unable to enter into this outside world, for if I did I would be trapped by the landscape and would vanish forever when the moment passed.