The Window Over Ulaanbaatar

After weeks of felt walls, a city hotel: a bath deep enough to matter, and a window the size of a wall with Ulaanbaatar's lights scattered to the mountains. I stood at the glass in the dark a long time, nothing between me and the ninth floor night but the sheer curtain, one hand holding it aside.

The camera on the desk took what little there was to take: an outline against the glow, the city beyond, the traveler reduced to a shape. Which is accurate. Cities see silhouettes; the details stay out on the steppe, where they were earned.