why do i keep having dreams about bombs?
we had received word that the enemy was going to bomb providence, and they required that all of america gather in that one area. (i have no idea why we agreed to do so, but we did.) it was decided that the safest way to deal with the threat was for all of us to gather inside brown university. the university was just one enormous building (roughly the size of the real brown campus), and somehow all of us were able to fit in it. it was dark and dingy and made of brick, kind of like the high school, or port authority in new york. as you can imagine, there was complete and utter chaos as the entire country struggled to find the safest part of the university. my brother and i hid out under desks in the library, which was the newest and brightest part of the building. my parents and their friends ran in and warned us that the library was the least sturdy part of the whole place, and that we should go to the basement. we ran everywhere, and i remember seeing people that i never thought i'd see again: elementary school teachers, friends from our apartment in india, jordan bacon. after trying out and abandoning several potential places to sit and wait for the blast, my family somehow ended up outside. we could see the plane in the sky, this big, brightly colored stripey blimp-like thing, so we knew we didn't have much time before the bomb fell. my dad led us to what looked like a little cottage, and assured us that it was the safest place to be because nobody else would know about it. there was a brief moment of panic because we couldn't get the door open, but i discovered i had my brown id in my pocket, and when i slid it through the little swipey thing, the door opened easily. the inside was just one empty room, which looked a lot like the carousel at goddard park, only much smaller: windows all around and a ceiling that was sort of dome-shaped. there was an elderly couple in there, climbing up a little white ladder to a place i could not see. they told us that there was a second floor that led to a network of tubes and pipes which ultimately provided a path back to the main building, and that they had claimed that place, so we would just have to sit and wait for the bomb on the first floor. my father waited for them to leave, then informed us that we were safer where we were: the bomb would blow out the windows, but the dome would supposedly collapse neatly on the remaining part of the structure, leaving us with very little head room, but otherwise perfectly safe. i remember crouching in a corner, shaking with terror as i waited for the explosion that would destroy the majority of our citizens. i don't know how exactly it happened, but all of a sudden, there was a lot of noise and dust, and someone screaming, "don't forget the little strawberry bombs that will follow! RUN!" so i climbed out and ran blindly. i came upon a pond-like body of water with several of those little planes that can sit on water. i was with three strangers. the four of us climbed into one, a plane painted with the heineken logo. we climbed in and ducked down just as the enemy plane with the big bomb flew over us, looking for any survivors to shoot down. the enemy plane continued to monitor the area for days, so we just camped out in this plane for some time. we had no food or water - just cases and cases of beer. finally, one day while the enemy plane was checking out another part of the pond, we ran for it - just jumped out of the window of the plane and sprinted into the jungle at the shore. i ran like hell for what felt like hours, then paused when i realized that i had lost my three companions. there i was, in the middle of the jungle with no idea where anybody was, or even if anybody else in the whole country was still alive.