From the day
Perspective: The Anxious Local · Sight
The glare of the sun hits those high-waisted trousers and stiff collars on the boardwalk, but my eyes are fixed on the headlines: those poor aviators are stalled by foul weather over the Azores. Everything feels precarious, from the skyrocketing six-cent price of a loaf to the blinding flash of arc welding down at the shipyard where the air smells of scorched iron. I tried to drown out the worry by humming that "Bubbles" tune, but even the new pop-up toaster I bought burnt my breakfast to a cinder. I’ll probably just escape to the movies tonight; it’s better than sitting home hunched over the shortwave radio, waiting for news of a crash.