I could feel my self clam up. My emotions threatened to overwhelm me and I forced them down. I had to leave, to go somewhere where I could deal with the news.

Numbly, I heard myself say the right things, give the right people salutes, and worked my way down the hall. I overheard a conversation fragment and knew they were talking about me.

“He isn’t taking it well?”

“No, of course not, would you?”

“That’s not the point, we need him to be functional.”

I ignored them and exited to the shattered outside world, and I walked alone.

The slides had melted into twisted, unrecognizable shapes of plastic and metal. The merry-go-round was cracked in half and covered scorch marks. Some of the sand in the ground had fused into large shards of glass that splintered and crunched under my boots. The only thing left of the park I remembered were the two swings that had been left mysteriously untouched when the bombs had dropped.

This park had been my refuge as I child, and now, despite the changes, I was here again.