The morning arrived wrapped in a kind of muted anticipation, the air holding its breath like the city itself was waiting to exhale. I stood by the long window that stretched across the east wall of the loft, watching as light crept up the steel frames of high-rises and softened their edges. Below, delivery trucks eased along the curb, and the occasional pedestrian moved with a kind of brisk solitude. But up here, everything remained still. The loft held its quiet like a sealed room, the kind ...