Gary Shteyngart, "Absurdistan"

I floated above the city, glancing generously in each direction. The careless hooks and crags of Queens and Brooklyn, slivers of industry, quadrangles of brown-bricked terraced flats; the fanatic middle-class hopes of already half-darkened New Jersey tendering their resignation for the night; the carpeted grid of Manhattan sinking into the horizon, the garlands of yellow light -- sharp, overreaching -- that form the facades of skyscrapers, the garlands of yellow light -- diffuse, flickering -- that form the sprawl of tenements, the garlands of yellow light -- swerving, opportunistic -- that form the headlights of taxi caravans; the garlands of yellow light, aye, in their horizontal and vertical arrangements that form a final resting place for the collected hopes of our civilization.