dc metro

Our bus dropped us off in what might have been the center of this city's thoroughly underwhelming chinatown district, with the full moon gazing mornfully down on the muddy waters of the Potomac. Upon locating the metro station (it was hidden behind a pile of plywood) we were at once struck by its sheer Star Wars / Fritz Lang motif, the subterranian quonset hut, lit dimply from its center, with a sort of Huxleyesque escalator arrangement delivering passengers to/from the platform with obvious planned efficiency. Moreoever we were soon to find that each station is nearly identical. The system is like BART except that the stations have this apocalyptic bomb-shelter quality. Emerging at last through an oblique borehole that just as well could have been an NMD / StarWars / airborne laster accident, we saw the moon again come right into the position between the escalator handrails and we recognised at once, with the clank-clank-clank, the space-aged train car, the bright could-be-ultraviolet lamp, yes, clearly we were on Space Mountain.