I was at first in some kind of house with many rooms: it was a very nice house, filled with lots of nice things, and it was very lived in, kind of messy, and in that case, it sort of felt like my own. All of it reminded me of the 1930s-40s, but I had the feeling that it was only meant to look that way, and not that the dream was actually taking place then. There was something odd about it--and yet, a something that feels, to me, very much like home--that while it was rather messy, rather lived in, rather comfy in that way, it was...vacant, and very lonely.

The transition is completely hazy, so just know that there was indeed some kind of transition here, although I can't recall it.

I was suddenly in the army, dressed in my gear to go out in the field, with a bunch of others, we were all packing up our gear while our sergeant lectured us, I presume about what was going to go down. I think at first that we were only getting ready for an exercise, but it turned into our going out into actual war and combat. I remember feeling really confused in the dream about my role in the dream, thinking about the fact that I had no idea what I was doing--this was more of a metathought about the dream, my trying to understand the dream and myself in the dream. I was being way too clumsy in the dream, which added to my feeling confused.

We hit a point of combat, there was so much going on, so many other soldiers that had already been there, it was mass confusion and didn't make any sense, and we were bottle-necking for some reason. We managed the combat and things were fine. Until, some soldier, for some reason, somehow, I have no idea how, he was holding a hand grenade that had accidentally lost its pin. But he was too stunned to do anything. The sergeant yelled and grabbed it and was about to throw it, but since there such confusion, we had been bottle-necking, and the area was just so damned condensed with U.S. soldiers, he was having a hard time figuring out, in those few seconds which direction he could throw it in. This created more confusion, since no one knew ahead of time in which direction to run. He finally made a decision to throw it behind us. I was towards the back, so I needed to book it. I was about to, but then I realized that there was a wooden, briefcase-like box full of hand grenades on the ground, and I got worried that the heat of the blast would reach them and set them off if I left them behind. So grabbed them and tried to run. But I was incompetent at this, being clumsy as I was in the dream, and I didn't get to run far--no one did, actually, since the area was so thick with soldiers. I practically tripped and fell to the ground, with that goddammned box of grenades still clutched between my hands and pressed against my chest. I went forward to the ground, covering the box with my body, just hoping that I was far enough away from the coming explosion, and that my body would shield them enough from the heat of the explosion setting them off.

I remember taking the deepest breath, laying there for what felt like a momentary eternity, waiting for the explosion. There was so much commotion, yelling and screaming of soldiers trying to scramble away through the thicket of green bodies; there were sounds of combat in the distance. I realized that right in front of me was a friend of mine, F., whom I know from my current philosophy department; he had been in the army before, and been in real combat. He didn't know I was right there, and I couldn't bother to tell him: after all, I was hugging a box full of hand grenades that might just all blow at once right next to him. I hugged it tighter, and bowed my head so he wouldn't be able to see my face around the bill of my cap. I was alone with that box of grenades, which might just be the last closest thing to my heart in my life.

And then the explosion came. First, the noise. Then the heat. It was the most monstrous wind of heat I had ever felt, against my back. I felt like my back was on fire, and I thought my jacket and shirt had literally burned completely through, exposing my bare skin to that wind of biting fire. All of the noise around me gradually faded into silence, as if it was all fading out of existence. I felt entirely alone then. I just kept hugging that box of grenades, squeezing my eyes shut, not really able to scream from the pain of the fire on my back, just feeling it pouring into me, and I noticed thin streams of tears on my face, burning my cheeks from the salt. All I could do was hope that the heat wasn't strong enough, that the fire didn't reach far enough to that little box digging into my ribcage, setting off all of those grenades.

Then it was over. And I was still breathing, and the box full of hand grenades clutched in my arms looked like it hadn't a scratch on it. Alone in the silence and the smoke, I felt...I don't know, like nothing, like a totally penetrating neutrality of feeling and thought.