"I do remember standing there at the edge of the IGA supermarket lot in my suit with my bags and case as dawn officially broke. For those who've never experienced a sunrise in the rural Midwest, it's roughly as soft and romantic as someone's abruptly hitting the lights in a dark room. This is because the land is so flat that there is nothing to impede or gradualize the sun's appearance. It's just all of a sudden there. The temperature immediately goes up ten degrees; the mosquitoes vanish to wherever exactly it is that mosquitoes go to regroup. Just to the west, the roofline of St. Dymphna's church sprayed complex shadows over half the downtown. I was drinking a can of Nesbitt's, which is sort of my version of morning coffee. The IGA's lot abuts the downtown's main drag, which is the in-town extension of SR 130 and ingeniously named. Directly across this Main Street from the IGA were the bubbletop pumps and saurian logo of Clete's Sinclair, outside of which the best and brightest of Philo High used to gather on Friday nights to drink Pabst Blue Ribbon and search the adjacent lot's weeds for frogs and mice to throw at Clete's bug zapper, which he'd modified to hold 225 volts of charge."
David Foster Wallace
The Pale King
