The City

            And when he was finally growing comfortable with the blurring speed of the four-lane highway, the taxi crossed the placid Columbia and the lights of Portland surrounded them. The layers, the levels, the lights everywhere spun his mind, and he could not hold back his face from pressing against the window. Beyond the concrete causeways spiraling away above and behind were great, dark buildings that seemed to connect with the night air somewhere high above. His eyelids felt strange, and he wondered what dream his decision had led him into. Outside, downtown pulsated and shifted like a soloing saxophone.