Night lights.

Madison.

I flew in from DC last night, via Detroit, and witnessed something absolutely fascinating I'd never had the opportunity to see before. Nearing eight at night, with cloudy skies, I hadn't expected to see much of anything through the window. Lake Michigan, which accounted for a significant portion of the flight, was nothing more than an endless expanse of vaguely discernable cloud cover. It was only when we crossed over the shoreline that things became interesting.

The cloud cover was low, a thin yet opaque veil of cottony puffs that stretched to the horizon. With the ground covered in several inches of freshly fallen snow, all of the nighttime lighting reflected off of the ground, diffusing through the clouds to create patches of light. Milwaukee, off to the south, was brightly orange from the high-pressure sodium lamps; other patches were smaller, isolated spots of cold, metal halide white, sodium orange, or some blend of the two. It was, in essence, a distilled map of nighttime life throughout Wisconsin.

The light barely managed to fight through the cloud cover, revealing a veining of pale light through the dips and valleys. Each spot looked like a snapshot of lightning buried inside the cloud, with an eerie inversion of the usual light and shadow that gave it impression of a film negative: instantly recognizable, but somehow feeling wrong.

I could begin to read the map as we flew home. Milwaukee, far brighter than anyplace else, with distant sparks arcing into the sky as the night's last flights took to the air. Scattered patches heading west, of little towns and shopping centers. And finally Madison, so much larger than anything else around it, with two dimples of shadow over Mendota and Monona.