Life under the dome

This morning, as I walked to work before sunrise, the sky was a glowing dome of silver-blue cloud, and it felt as though I were walking through a huge dark room shot through with scattered night lights. The tiny lights of cars moving on the University Bridge in the distance looked like miniatures -- the sleeping city was a toy, and I was a tiny toy figure walking on a map, through a dream, like a small boy sleepwalking through his dark room stumbling into a landscape of toys that have become the world under a snow globe dome.

Then I got to the cafe. "Man, I'm having a hard time staying awake today," the barista said, and I woke up.