The bus shelter in frost

An original imagined literary non-fiction-style account of waiting on a frosty morning.

The frost had edited the bus shelter overnight. Yesterday's scratched initials were hidden beneath pale branches which had never belonged to any tree. The timetable remained visible in a narrow rectangle, as though the cold had agreed that some practical information should survive.

I stood beside a person whose breath appeared and vanished before either of us spoke. Along the kerb, leaves had become small, rigid boats. A passing car broke one with a sound too slight for the speed of its departure.

Through the glass, the shops looked unusually distant. Their colours had been rubbed into soft patches, and the pavement entered them without keeping a clear edge. The shelter was familiar enough to be boring on most mornings. Now it offered a private exhibition which would not last until lunch.

Someone pressed a glove against the panel. A clear oval opened, giving the street one sudden eye. We looked through it towards the bend where the bus should appear.

When the bus arrived, warm light spread across the frost. For a moment, the pale branches shone more brightly. Then the doors opened, we moved, and the shelter returned to waiting without us.

Examine the methods the writer uses to make the ordinary bus shelter seem transformed.