The light at oh-dark-thirty this morning (Sunday version, and therefore later than on weekdays) was not muted by overcast, and I found the low-angle sunlight stabbing this mundane mailbox.
Several houses down a giant fig tree overhangs the sidewalk, and the fruit* is ripe and beyond ripe, pungent and attended by insects. Given the overpowering odor, I am not surprised that this food-producing tree was singled out early by desert people for harvest.
* Apparently not actually a fruit, but an infructescence, for those who do not want common usage to trump technical meanings. Speaking of meanings, our otherwise tame word sycophant has an etymological link to the fig, if the internets are to be believed.