At the bus stop last night

Last night I left my friend's house and walked to the bus stop. The snow banks piled up on the sides of the roads glistened in the soft glow of the street lights, still melting in the slightly-above-freezing air. No moon hung in the sky and no stars were visible either, just a black canvas for the various storefronts I walked pass to spill light on to. 

The bus stop is a sign in the sidewalk, no shelter or bench. If you were walking fast you could go by it without noticing. A clearing in the snowbanks marks a haphazard path to board the bus, whenever it might arrive. Now standing next to the sign, I kicked some of the snow bank aside and stuffed my hands in my pockets. I had 6 minutes to kill. 

A minute or two after I arrived at the bus stop another person, equally as bundled up as I was, arrived to wait. We stood wordlessly as cars and people passed on either side of us. 

Another minute passed and a bulldozer appeared to clear more of the snow bank on the other side of the road. Gigantic, weathered, and yellow. It was easily twice the height and length as any other vehicle on the road at the time and did not seem interested in following any of the rules or lines as the other vehicles. Cars apprehensively waited in either direction as the bulldozer methodically cleared, reversed, and again cleared the side of the road. Occasionally a car would sneak by to wait at the intersection directly ahead. A mound of snow started to accumulate in the street. More cars slipped by. The bulldozer continued clearing. The mound of snow was now taller than I was. My phone said my bus was delayed.

Suddenly the next car to slip by wasn't a car, but a dump truck. Emblazoned with a city contractor logo and a number of savage dents lining the sides, it too wasn't interested in the rules or lines of other cars  and parked itself in the middle of the road, roughly 4 feet from where I was standing behind the snow bank.

 The bulldozer promptly began depositing the mound of snow it had built up into the back of the dump truck. Occasionally a loud bang would echo off the nearby storefronts as the bulldozer miscalculated it's height and smacked into the side of the dump truck. A car sneaks by the unfolding scene. Then another. 

 The dump truck reaches capacity and lurches away newly loaded with filthy snow. The bulldozer stops at the side of the road for a moment, it's floodlights casting the world around me in bright lights and harsh shadow. It's a brief moment. The bulldozer pulls away and the night falls back into darkness. Cars flow freely again. The bus comes. I forgot my Charlie Card. I walk back to my friends house.