From the day
Perspective: The Future Historian · Sight
The morning sun glints off the polished brass of a passing automobile, where I watch a driver struggle to crank the engine, unaware that the newly invented electric starter is about to render his physical exertion obsolete. Through the shop window, the silhouette of Captain Hains’ high-collared wool coat cuts a sharp, lonely figure against the backdrop of vibrant red-and-yellow boxes of Rook—the game that seems to be in every parlor from Maine to Georgia. I observe the way the shadows of the flickering gas lamps stretch like ink across the pavement into a future where these headlines of domestic scandal are merely digital footnotes. True history, I note, is written in the shift of these mundane habits; it is a matter of deeds not words that defines the trajectory of this closing Edwardian age.