"When's the soup coming?" It'll be here soon," said Roland. "There's a stew today as well. All vegetarian, I'm afraid. Meat's far too expensive." It's...not proper meat anyway," said a thin woman who was probably in her fifties, but whose grey hair was already falling out in clumps from a combination of malnutrition and the ravages of a life spent evading life's little problems through drugs. "You wouldn't want to eat what they call meat these days. It's fucking diseased. It's like Frankenstein. My hair was pulled back. "Just letit out," my mom said. I vomited some more.This sucks. This can't be happening. Hold it together Chris.After a minute, I said, "I'm good. Thanks."Mom let go of me and left the bathroom.I stood up and held onto the sink. I washed my face, spitting theremaining bile out of my mouth. I fumbled for my contacts case andsolution. I pulled my contacts out of my eyes. My eyes were so dry itfelt like I was ripping them out with sandpaper. I washed the smearedmakeup off. The allegedly 'precision' bombing raids we'd launched against Berlin in1940 and 41 had proven ineffective so now it was the turn of area bombing,the problem with which was that it was indiscriminate. Yes, over thoseweeks the RAF took out the Ministry of Munitions, the Waffen SSAdministrative College, the barracks of the Imperial Guard at Spandau, andseveral arms factories, but we also destroyed or damaged a lot ofchurches, the former or current British, French, Italian and Japaneseembassies,. Denise went straight to the Ladies, ran some water from a tap and washed her face. She looked at herself in the mirror, and suddenly started bawling. Denise simply couldn't help herself, she cried, she sobbed, she whimpered and then she started over again.It was Elizabeth that found her. After the telephone warning from Elaine that she'd tried to pass on to Stan, she'd felt a little helpless and she was worried and a little embarrassed to find the younger woman in the toilets sobbing her heart.