From the day
Perspective: The Future Historian · Tactile
The heavy humidity of July clings to my stiff polyester-blend shirt as I thumb through the crinkled newsprint, tracing the trajectory of El Salvador’s unrest with a clinical eye. I drop a lone fifty-cent piece onto the counter for a sourdough loaf, the cold metal clinking against the wood while "Every Breath You Take" pulses rhythmically from a nearby radio. Reaching into my bag, my fingers brush the dimpled, synthetic vinyl skin of a Cabbage Patch Kid, a tactile harbinger of the mass-market obsession that will define this consumerist epoch. Word, this era of burgeoning digital protocols and soft-sculptured faces is merely the rough draft of the data-driven world I now inhabit.