they roamed the milky blue

I was on the train yesterday when the train, like every other train before it, left the tunnel and let the sunlight burst through its smeary windows.

It was sunlight as only sunlight could be in June. It threw such minute shadows that everything became crisp and sharp, like a photoedited print. The world took on a two-dimensional quality but for the clouds, which roamed the milky blue heavens in fantastic painterly detail. Crammed between the dead dozing faces of people who ride trains I craned my neck like a fool trying to commit the shapes and shades to memory. I swear I could see every caterpillar by which the train happened to pass. Each waxen leaf looked as though it were made of plastic. Even the disgusting smears on the window glass shimmered. Everything looked highly artificial. For a while I could not believe this was my country.