October 2. A kite perches outside our apartment on the 24th floor almost every morning around the same time I enter the study and screeches to his heart’s content.

“Do you hear that kite, Button?”

“His name is Fluffy and he’s a friend. We became friends after he saw me waving out to him some time back before these windows were boarded up and I could look outside. These days he calls out even louder because he can’t see me and he doesn’t know why! Perhaps he thinks I am not around anymore.”

”What does the other ‘kite’ mean?”

“It’s that paper thing attached to a string which you fly.”

“You’re right. And what do the two of you talk about?”

“A lot of stuff. He tells me about his family and how he is finding it increasingly difficult to survive because the city is being shorn of trees where he once had his nest, weather changes and difficulty in finding food for his family and himself. They have twins: Both boys.”

“You have quite a few friends. There were those rats and now Fluffy!”