Polaroid Life

It was a long walk home, mostly uneventful, slushy sidewalks, all that new snow and it'll never be spring. People walked carefully in the slippery undulations of the streets, always staring anywhere but at each other. How gray this nation in February, how sad its people.

But at the edge of my vision, something moved. A young man, twenty maybe, it's so hard to tell these days, skinny legs and skinny pants, navy blue wool jacket, came running towards me, one hand in his pocket, causing the jacket to swing back and forth as he went. The other hand clutched a cigarette, and, as he ran, he took a deep drag, held his entire hand over his face, crossed the street, his breath came out like a great big puff of smoke, a locomotive racing through the industrial working city. He looked like a young Beatle running down the streets of London. For that brief second, I was watching a movie, I stepped straight into it and through it as he ran past. To wherever he was going, that was such a rush, that required him to smoke and run at once. In no time at all, it was over, he had gone.

But the feeling of little moments of magic, little breaks from reality, remained with me all night.