"He used to pick and shovel at the spring roads of Berkshire, April afternoons he's lost, "Chapter 81 work," they called it, following the scraper that clears the winter's crystal attack-from-within, its white necropolizing...picking up rusted beer cans, rubbers yellow with preterite seed, Kleenex wadded to brain shapes hiding preterite snot, preterite tears, newspapers, broken glass, pieces of automobile, days when in superstition and fright he could make it all fit...and now in the Zone, later in the day he became a crossroad, after a heavy rain he doesn't recall, Slothrop sees a very thick rainbow here, a stout rainbow cock driven down out of pubic clouds into Earth, green wet valleyed Earth, and his chest fills and he stands crying, not a thing in his head, just feeling natural..." (638).

This is one of those moments of epiphany and realization, a demonstration of how the world has changed, and a continuation of several themes. Describing his life back in Berkshire, Slothrop doesn't make it sound particularly attractive with the litter, but he could "make it all fit" within a rational world system. War isn't an ideal state of the world, but Pynchon expresses a disapproval of the peace preceding the war too, describing "preterite," litter strewn roads in Slothrop's montage-like recollections. It suggests that even in peacetime the human race will find something just as destructive as war to be embroiled in. "Preterite" recalls Puritanical suppression and everlasting clashes over religion, and the mention of brand "Kleenex" suggests corporate hegemony and consumerism. After establishing the sorry state of the world even in peacetime, Pynchon compounds the severity of his judgement by suggesting that war is an opportunity for renewal, a return to an empty purity of sorts that predates the "superstition" and "fright" associated with rational thought.