All morning long, the air in the cell has been growing steadily thicker and muggier as if water were being coaxed to a boil.

I pull the gray shirt over my head. The tank top under it, soaked with sweat, sticks to my skin like gauze on a fresh wound. Peeling the tank top off, I take it to the sink where I rub it down with a bar of soap, then rinse and wring it several times.

When it is humid like this, all you can do is sit half naked on a zabuton and wait patiently for a vagabond breeze to meander in.

Like that one there . . . Ahhh.