Christmas lion

My flat is so silent and new. Not new, new, just got a new skin on underneath the old one. The arches are gleaming wood, very Brussels, the echo of deco on lino. An anagram of lino is lion. I tread on fresh lion, I notice the smell: clean, plastic, pleasant.
Last night to a Greek cultural event in Place des Martyrs. Brussels is made for Christmas, the squares with their shadows thrown by the elegant balconies, wrought iron or swelling white plaster balustrades, the cobblestones (in my part of town, pigeon-coloured) shining that brazen sodium rain-dissolved light. Coals burning above us instead of in our hearths. The cracking plaster offering a Victorian interpretation of the night. The boarded up cinemas, and beneath it all, us in scarves and coats, feeling special.