It is a busy morning in downtown Brooklyn. A few inches from the pedestrian light birds warble in the dead tree branches. The floors are still wet from morning dew while the streets are quiet, with a long line of people standing outside a Baptist church. At the busy intersection of Tompkins street, a young white man with a curly mustache in a cotton jacket, and a knapsack on his right shoulder waits for the traffic light to turn green. He drums his feet on the concrete pedestrian pathway, over and over again like the hands of a clock, tick-tocks. He has one hand in his pocket, while his other hand pulls his knapsack forward on his shoulder—the man’s shiny grey pants flap in the wind to the beat of his feet. Standing a few inches from the traffic light, he squints his eyes under the morning sun, while looking at the pedestrian light to turn white.

            A woman in black clothing stands at the pedestrian light with a baby in a stroller. A dollar bill slips from her pocket when she tries to pull the stroller into the shade for the baby. The young man picks up the dollar bill and hands it to the woman, who thanks him for his help with a gentle smile on her face. Then he makes funny gestures and faces for the baby.

            Afterward, he looks at his watch and rocks his body back and forth, restless like the rhythm of the morning wind. Beside him stands an old black man wearing a navy-blue puffer jacket with a silver walking stick. His hair and beard are gray colored. There is something creamy and thick, tiny in size stuck in his beard. He turns every time someone passes behind him. When a young black girl stops before entering into a store, the old man smiles at her, showing his brown teeth.

            After a minute, the pedestrian light turns to white, and the man in the cotton jacket swiftly crosses to the other side. He abandons his jacket to the wind and holds his hands to the front of his pants. The old man stays behind, still watching and observing his environment. Then he places his body weight on his walking stick, and the sun rests on one side of his cheek.

            Inside the store on the same corner, the young black girl takes from the shelf a mini plastic bottle of Tropicana orange juice and one bottle of Smart water. She joins the queue of two strangers at the store’s reception desk to pay for the stuff. The same frail-looking girl in torn blue jeans, a brown hooded jacket, and her ponytail, shakes as she taps her feet on the almond-nut marble floor behind two men, to the music coming from her earpiece. One of the men is a lanky black man in dreadlocks in rolled-up washed baggy jeans with his pocket flapped outwards. His mushroom brown boxer is also out for the world to see, and the slacked black tanked singlet he has on shows some of the curled hair on his chest. Instead of waiting for the attendant to take his order, he drops a dollar bill on the attendant’s desk, and tears open a snickers chocolate bar before walking out of the store. The other man in the queue leans his body on the counter, where the attendant carefully calculates the total amount purchased.

            The young girl continuously checks her black leather citizen watch for the time. When it reaches her turn, she hands the bottles of juice and water to the attendant, bringing her Capital One credit card from her yellow leopard skin wallet to pay. Instead of waiting for the attendant to package the products, she puts them in her ink-blue handbag, collects her card from the attendant, and rushes out of the store.

            The old man is still in the same spot standing right beside the traffic light. The girl puts her hands in the pocket of her brown jacket and takes one giant step after the other to catch the next train at the Myrtle-Willoughby train station on the next block.  At the end of the block by the train station, there are two school buses painted yellow and black parked side by side. The bus belongs to a daycare with a Jewish name.

            Young girls run into the daycare on Myrtle street two-by-two wearing different colors of puffer jackets like pebbles bouncing across a cemented floor. The corner is windy, and the building shields the sunlight, so the girls clutch the neckline of their coats while holding the hand of their partners. Some of the girls are giggling, others have serious appearances on their faces. Instructors help the little girls off the bus and adjust their backpacks. When all the girls get off the bus, the young black girl continues on her way to the traffic light at the end of the block, where she waits for the pedestrian light to turn white. While waiting, she takes her phone from the right pocket of her brown jacket and changes the music. Then she rechecks the time and begins to tap her feet to the countdown of the pedestrian light. Immediately when the traffic light stops the moving cars, she rushes across the road into the train station.