How are you doing, Shmoopers? If you've made it this far, you can make it through anything. As he loses consciousness again, Joe imagines a rat clawing at the hole and eating bits of him, which evokes the memory of a rat eating the face of a dead Prussian officer. He's wearing a mask to hide his face, and there is a hole in his side that doesn't seem to be healing. There are shenanigans.Īwake, Joe considers his condition. In another dream, Joe remembers a guy at the bakery he worked at named Jose. Now that we've recovered (a little), we'll move on. Well, there's a hole from his throat that extends to his forehead, so he has no eyes, no jaw, and no nose he's breathing through a tracheotomy tube in his throat. Concentrating, he tries to figure out what is left of his face. Joe tries to scream but quickly learns that he has no mouth. Suddenly, he gets the memo: both of his legs have been cut off. Joe wonders why his head feels so heavy compared to his body. Joe returns home to find that his ex is actually cheating on him with his best friend. Our hero falls out of consciousness again and thinks about the time in high school when he and his friend Howie ran away to work in the Utah desert after their girlfriends cheated on them with the same guy. Hold up, Joe: did you say your left arm was amputated? Sorry, buddy. This prompts a memory of Kareen, Joe's girlfriend: he remembers holding her in his arms on the day he left. Joe feels people working on him, and he realizes that-holy crap-his left arm has been amputated.

He also remembers moving with his family to Los Angeles, where he first heard talk about the war.

He has a lot of dreams, most of which involve his childhood in Colorado. And as if things didn't already suck enough, our hero realizes that he is deaf.Īfter an initial freak-out, Joe slips in and out of consciousness. He can't really tell, because he's completely covered in bandages, and we mean all-out mummy-style, including his head. Joe is totally in a military hospital-or at least, he assumes he is. But this one is kind of weird: it seems like Joe's father has died, but this turns out to be just a dream. How many books and movies begin with the main character waking up? Answer: a lot. Joe Bonham wakes up to the sound of a telephone ringing.

Johnny got his gun book online