Ill Omen
Because we live just a couple of blocks from the city’s cluster of downtown hospitals, the chop of helicopter rotors overhead is a standard ingredient of our urban sound mix. Whenever I hear an air ambulance I think, “Somebody’s in trouble. I hope they’ll be all right.”
Last night I was hearing helicopters for two hours straight. I expected to check the news this morning and learn about some terrible highway pile-up or other catastrophe ferrying waves of victims to various trauma units. Fortunately the go-to source for local awful news events has turned up disaster-free this morning.
Funny how a high density of flying ambulances seems so much more ominous than the equivalent number of blaring sirens on the ground. There’s no bad news quite like bad news from above.