I write these words on the fifth floor of an office building on the flanks of Old Montreal, small flakes of snow skittering down outside. From my blue chair, I cannot see the sky, only a fragment of a tall brick building across an alley. The building has ranks of identical windows. I can look through the spotted air at three of them, all with identical grey curtains drawn to shut out someone else's view of wall and newsroom. The snow falls at crazy angles according to the wind currents of the moment. I have seen it, on certain days, fall upwards.