The Red Panda Chronicles

The Middleman, Part 1, June, 1940.

The streets of Toronto were full of life, and it was all beginning to feel a bit festive.

It was one of the first hot evenings of the year, and after a long wet spring cloistered inside,

the people of the city found their comfortable nooks stifling and still.

The heat was not yet oppressive, but it was enough to take a people who had been made reclusive

since before the winter had descended, and pushed them out into the wide, busy world.

Those who had easy access to an outside space went to it, those who did not... them out into the wide, busy world.

Those who had easy access to an outside space went to it.

Those who did not renew acquaintances with neighbors and congregated, often over a small glass

of something strong and cool.

Porches, patios, verandas, and fire escapes all held their own small, jovial gatherings.

From one stoop you might hear the jangle of a guitar,

from another the twill of a harmonica raised in merry tune,

and from everywhere the sound of laughter,

ringing through the darkness from a thousand tiny islands.

The hope that filled the late spring air was palpable.

The wartime factory jobs that were increasingly

common paid more than anyone could remember from ten years of depression, and the conflict

that was behind it all seemed a very long way away. The war was shaking Europe to its core,

but here, just for one night, the people on those porches and stoops could be forgiven for feeling like everything was going to be all right after all.

The night took on an air of jolly carnival, as if there was something exciting just around the corner,

...