To Work and Yo Ho Ho...

"Chak, chak, chak," the echoes of loud heels on the sidewalk surround me, too muffled to be described as "clip, clip, clip." Red cheeks and noses, hats pulled low, and long scarves over dark coats pass by me as they too head to their offices, receptionist desks, cafés or cash registers. It is the rush of morning workers, spilling out of the crowded and warm trains, where they have caught their last few winks, read the morning news, or mentally checked off a list of to do's realizing that the coffee maker may have been left on at home and that the kids' gym clothes didn't make it into their backpacks; now emerging from the high-ceilinged train station into the -9 degree city air. The sky this morning glows cloudlessly, mysteriously lighting the city with a cold blue hue, warmed only by the millions of small yellow lights signaling the joyous holidays that are approaching at the end of the week. The other prominent color is charcoal gray, as the sentineling trees of the big streets and the park stretch their bare silhouettes into the city panorama, by no means unused to the routines of city life or the winter wind, having spent perhaps centuries supervising the comings and goings beneath them. I hear "rumble, rumble, rumble," as the old trams go by on their rails, and a steady "meep, meep, meep," as the light changes to red, and the little running green man tells me I may walk across the cobblestones. "Pling!" the elevator greets me on the ground floor of my building, and "pling!" it wishes me a good workday as I exit into the echoing entryway of the sixth.