This is the day Serendipità prefers. On the silent day she exits her apartment early, moving down the stairs two at a time, jogging into the courtyard, and then out into the dry street. On the silent day the weather is dry, humidity promises sound so there is no humidity.

The post office is always packed on the day of silence and it’s packed when she arrives. It’s an ideal day to confront the tasks presented by a post office: no one complains about the lines, or about the post office workers, or their temperament, about the temperature of this federal space, or about the cost of a stamp ($11). They can complain but they choose not to. In silence they wait in line. Behind her and in front of her—women. There are only women standing around in the post office. The women fan themselves with their packages; they move their body weight from one leg to the other.

When Serendipità arrives at the front of the line she orders special edition stamps, three sheets of twenty. She chooses the stamps with black people’s faces on them. On a piece of paper she writes and hands over to the teller: three sheets of twenty special edition stamps, black faces only, please. When she’s done she walks the long way home.

No cars honking. No ambulances. No barking and no crying adults. No echo or wind in your ears.

After the post office but before returning home Serendipità stops at the bakery, the fish store, the ice cream parlor. She writes down all the things she wants on pieces of paper: cannoli, cento grammi di branzino, red grape sorbet. She hands the slips of paper to the cashiers. Everyone is outside, quiet. She picks flowers outside the ice cream parlor. Serendipità wears a shirt that sends a message—Dr. King in swimming trunks, the sun on his face and on his suprasternal notch, the rest of his body in shadow and surrounded by pool water.

At dusk she wastes time watching the traffic light change from red to green to yellow, standing on the corner for an hour looking at her building from below, at her balcony and all the green mesh netting. Then she returns home. At home she does things she wouldn’t do on a noisy day—lip synching, stretching, also mouthing vile things, being generally profane. In the silence she worries about the ongoing construction.

On the balcony the shadows move. Across the street the wind lifts a white sheet hanging from the clothesline, a big white sheet. Serendipità soaks the dried cannellini beans overnight to prepare for company.