We were riding the Eye, high above the River Thames. Arriving just after opening, the queue was moving fast. I wasn’t quite awake, and I think the height produced a slight vertigo no amount of bad coffee could fix.

The boy seemed ambivalent about the view, only occasionally taking notice of his usual loves: trains, planes, cars, and boats. This morning, he only had eyes for the little girl with the pin. The girl’s mother didn’t know what to make of him — chirping in a foreign tongue — all devilish grin and forwardness. The little girl was curious and reserved. The boy played a sequence of angles, finally hitting upon a combination of snorting and cackling. It worked. The pair of three-year-olds took over the car for a moment, laughing hysterically, neither speaking the other’s language.

We were good tourists. We took pictures of Ben and London-y things, but I was most interested in this fleeting Blade Runner skyline. The contrast just so; the gloom and the sun colliding. One of the many things I love about this place.