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December in Chicago

The sun wanders like a lazy eye across the sky. The wind is blowing hard as steel, abrasive to the skin as steel wool scraping the cheeks. It is Chicago, winter is coming quick, and the evening waits impatient as the shadows consume full floors of the skyscrapers downtown. Pretty soon, darkness will eat the shadows, too, and the wind will threaten night’s prominence with its wheezing and squealing across the sky. Only not quite as indirect as the wandering sun.
I ponder these things from seven stories up, looking out across the Chicago River and letting my sightline be distracted by the Wrigley Building and the yellow "Chicago Sun - Times" sign pointing at the white tower and gothic connecting bridge of that landmark set of buildings on Michigan Avenue. At least, it is warm inside my office. At least, it is not yet winter.
But soon, snow will brush between these buildings, pushed around by the vicious winds, and Chicagoans will bundle themselves in heaps of coats and scarves and snug hats and gloves. I can see it coming, as I stay for just a week at this office, mesmerized by the whipping flag that sorely flaps at the corner of Michigan Avenue that I can see, on top of one of the Wrigley buildings. Perhaps, I reconsider, winter has already come.
December in Chicago holds reminder of many colder days to come and the hybernation of a city that retreats into buildings.

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