From above it looks like a circuit board left in the rain. All those perfect rectangles pressed together, each one holding its small portion of dreams and disappointments. Sunset Boulevard cuts through it like a scar, like someone drew a line with a ruler and said here, this is where the light dies.

You can see the swimming pools scattered through the blocks—bright blue dots like pills someone dropped from a great height. Each one a small rebellion against the desert, a daily act of defiance that says we will have water where water should not be, we will have paradise in a place that kills everything green.

Rooftops tell stories in different shades of weathered gray and sun-bleached white. Some have gardens, small green smudges, as if there might still be hope in growing things. Others are flat expanses baking under the merciless sky, collecting heat like grudges.

From here you can't see people walking small patches, sitting on their front porches. Can’t hear music bleeding from open windows or smell exhaust mixing with jasmine and desperation.

The geometry of it all. Human need arranges itself in straight lines and right angles, as if order could make sense of why anyone would build a city where the earth cracks, mountains catch fire and the ocean is a rumor most days.