On a particularly cold Autumn day, I stood on a street corner in a small North American town. It was windier and chillier than normal, and hardly conducive to the kind of procrastinative loitering typical of Southern Europe — but the Sun was unusually bright, and when its warmth caught my face I knew what the moment demanded. I lit a cigarette and let the Sun toast me as best it could. Whistling old Christmas tunes, I watched as three desperate souls hurried past me in three different directions. All three walked quickly. They maintained a nervous gait, as if trying to […]