Warm afternoon in Roanoke, the sky doing that hazy watercolor thing, blue bleeding into gold like someone tipped a jar. The air smelled faintly of creosote from the rail yard, cut with the sweetness of honeysuckle climbing the chain-link fences, green tendrils writing in cursive on the metal.

Downtown, the brick walls carried their ghosts well — fading ads for biscuits and soda, a recently repainted mishmash of colors and textures. Market Square dozed in the heat: a man tuning his guitar under the shade awning, the notes weaving into the lazy air like dragonflies; two teenagers hunched over a chessboard that might have remembered other games in other summers. Somewhere, a train lumbered past, each car a rolling chapter in a book that never ends.

Then the sky cracked open — a short, silver rain burst. Pavement and brick drank deep, and the air filled with steam. Streetlights flickered on early, humming. The world smelled like wet stone and coffee from the café on Campbell Ave. For a moment, the sidewalk shimmered, and I thought I saw koi swimming in the rain puddles.

Walking home, I found the heron in the creek again, unmoving, waiting for something only it knew. Behind it, the water ran smooth and black, carrying the last bits of daylight away like loose change in a current.