on friday there was a fire at park street. i don't mean that the station was up in flames (which was what i pictured when i heard the news - for some reason the thought that kept going through my head was not "there's a fire at park street" but "park street is on fire." the red line was completely out of service during rush hour on a friday, and additionally the red sox were playing at home. any station but park street would not have caused as much mayhem, but park street it was, and mayhem there was. the trains were backed up all the way on both sides of the red line; all along mass ave the stations were regurgitating bewilderedcommuters onto the street, some of whom newly evacuated from their train compartments. ( "twenty-five minutes we were in that train!" i heard a passerby say. i thought she radiated, more than indignation, subterraean claustrophobia.) cabs were not for the having, and all about us were crawling cars. commuters-turned-pedestrians took uncertain steps in the direction of boston. there were rumours of shuttle buses being organised to ferry people across to boston, but they certainly were not in sight. several m2 shuttles came, and so did the 1 bus, but they were no good to us. for hours that day the cities of cambridge and boston found themselves at a standstill. later, when i found myself in a car, we were stalled on storrow drive. some people held up hand-drawn signs by the side of the bridge: "honk to impeach bush and cheney!" soon one couldn't tell the empathetic honks from the genuine.

(in the first moments of being stranded by mass ave i thought also of dhoby ghaut last july, when a power cable snapped, and they had to evacuate the passengers. sbs ran shuttle buses to and from the affected stations, and all the trains still running slowed to arriving at seven minute intervals. it took almost thirty minutes for me to make the usual seventeen minute journey from hougang to dhoby ghaut. later that day, coming home, i looked down at the dhoby ghaut platform and had the distinct impression of refugees trying to get out of shanghai or warsaw on the last train before war breaks.)