The windows of my office are facing south. They go all the way to the ceiling, opening the room to the sky. I can see several low buildings, dominated by those of the Geography Department, a small parking lot, and a large patch of grass surrounded by shrubs and trees. I can also see the metal roof of the floor beneath mine, which is somewhat wider because it contains classrooms. It slopes gently away from the windows and toward the gutter. By the way, the sound of rain on the roof is sometimes deafening down there. The metal is cut into strips a bit more than a foot wide and the edges are folded together to provide a watertight surface. The resulting ridges are about a thumb high. They are quite invisible when it is overcast, or when the sun is high in the sky, but they light up early in the morning, when the sun appears in the east, that is, from the left. This often happens even when it is quite cloudy because the sun briefly manages to shed some light beneath the tangle of clouds. At sunrise, only the tops of the ridges come alive against the surface of the roof, which is still in shade, and which thus appears blue. Seen in perspective, which is exaggerated by the slope, the burning ridges of the roof then appear to be pointing skyward, toward the future itself.