What’s the purpose of jolly flatboatmen painting

Which line in this excerpt from the great gatsby by f. scott fitzgerald contains a simile? about half way between west egg and new york the motor-road hastily joins the railroad and runs beside it for a quarter of a mile, so as to shrink away from a certain desolate area of land. this is a valley of ashes—a fantastic farm where ashes grow like wheat into ridges and hills and grotesque gardens where ashes take the forms of houses and chimneys and rising smoke and finally, with a transcendent effort, of men who move dimly and already crumbling through the powdery air. occasionally a line of grey cars crawls along an invisible track, gives out a ghastly creak and comes to rest, and immediately the ash-grey men swarm up with leaden spades and stir up an impenetrable cloud which screens their obscure operations from your sight.

What is the reasoning in this argument?

Which sentence uses the simple present tense of sleep? mr. ford sleeping on a feather mattress in his apartment. mr. ford will sleep on a feather mattress in his apartment. mr. ford sleeps on a feather mattress in his apartment. mr. ford slept on a feather mattress in his apartment.