A blue balloon

We sat on the T, hot and tired after a morning wandering the streets of Cambridge and the ivy-Hogwarts glory of Hahvahd's campus. It was the final day of an all-too-short vacation. It being public transportation, the public was present, a sampling of the Boston streetscape.

To my right, my wife. To my left, a young black teen, maybe 13 or 14, wearing bright red sports gear, sitting with a large scooter folded between his legs. To his left, a young Muslim man and a young Muslim woman, she in a pretty abaya, he dressed conservatively. Neither were Arab. Malaysian, by the set of their faces.

In front of me, a bearded black man in his late twenties, round of face and torso, casually dressed. To his right, a young German couple, she slender and angular, he red-blonde and bearded. They spoke in the quiet percussion of Germanic whispering. To his left, a middle-aged woman, white, her feet in sandals, the hint of bandages beneath.