You don't expect to step off of the T and find yourself in a movie. Not that there was one this evening, but there was something in the air. Smoke, actually. The platform was filled with the light gray of engine smoke. Hundreds of feet along the platform, light was refracted through thicker air. It was smog. The air was polluted and were I to see it every day I would be broken down by it. But to see it once this evening, it was magical.

It didn't cause worry. When smoke should scare me I feel like I will know. It took a station I've been to every week for years and made it new. I walked up the escalator and into the concourse hall and saw how the smoky atmosphere had drifted upwards and reached even the top
of the barrel vaulted space. I saw rays of light and colors that looked vibrant against the sparkling gray atmosphere. I saw why movies look so good and so different from the every day, the artifice behind the magic. Somehow the dirt and grunge of the evening commute had caused something festive. I like that I found my version of the Christmas holiday in the accidental stage set of a Boston train station.

And somehow great and disappointing that when I asked a cop what was going on he just shook his head and said it happens, plenty of times. I smiled, shook my head and walked into the night.