Just a dream?

I was waiting for my friend at a busy train station. The person I was supposed to meet was my friend, whom I had met in NY, and whom I'd been close to since then.
In front of my eyes, people were coming and going.

All of sudden, I felt like I wanted to change my clothes. Right there and right then.
And I felt nothing - no shame - about doing that in public.
After I changed my clothes, I felt like I wouldn't need anymore of my clothes, including the ones I was wearing. And I threw them all away.

Then my friend showed up, and that was when I realized that those clothes I threw away happened to mean a lot to me. So I picked them up.

I was looking for something to put those clothes in, and I remembered I had a paper bag with me. With my clothes in it, I stored the paper bag in the nearest locker. My friend offered me some coins, and as he put several coins in it.

Its small display showed “10" which meant it would be good for 10 minutes. It worked just like a parking meter. I knew, after 10 minutes, I would have to add some more coins. My friend was leaving away from the locker and from me. Just as I was about to leave, too, I found 3 coins returned, so I kept them in my hand to give back to him.

On the street, he and I were walking. We were heading for some place. I didn't know where to. He didn't tell me where to. We were just walking.

I remembered I had those 3 coins in my hand and I was gonna return them to him. But he refused to take them. He said he meant to give me those coins. I felt bad about receiving them, so I refused. And I told him I would not take them because he was giving me too much already.
He looked kind of mad.

I couldn't understand why we were having a conversation like that. I wondered why we were arguing about such a little thing.

Outside I was at a table, being with him and his daughter, who was about 3 or 4 years old.
We were having a good time until his wife showed up. She started acting like she was so in love with her husband. I felt nothing about her attitude. Then she started acting like she hated his daughter. And I felt mad. I couldn't let her do that to such a little kid. I defended his daughter by saying that I loved his daughter so much. I said I loved her more than anything else. And I really meant it. More than my friend. More than any man I'd ever loved.

Then a scene changed.

There was a battle field, and I was hiding and running away from enemies. I was wearing dark-green clothes, which exactly soldiers in the army wore. I found a place, refugee camp, to hide myself from the enemies. There were people, foreign people, who looked to me like Indians from India. Their kids were playing, and they were wearing the battle-field clothes, too. I was carrying a black umbrella with white handkerchief tied to it. And I took that handkerchief off, and as I approached close to them, I was waving it like a white flag.

They didn't shoot me, Thank God, I felt.
One of them, short and Asian-looking guy, came up to me. He asked me who I was, what my nationality was. He asked me if I was a Chinese. And I said no. I said, with a moment of hesitation, after a second of serious thinking, I am Japanese. I didn't know who they were allied with. And I was afraid to say that I was a Japanese because we, Japanese, could be their enemies.

In the refugee camp, I met some boy, about 3 or 4 years old. I happened to like this boy very much. In fact I was holding his hand wherever I went. The next moment, I bumped into a guy who appeared to be this little boy's father. He looked very familiar to me. Someone I'd known for a long time. From another life. I had a very good feeling towards him. The feeling I had for him was very tender and warm.
It could be love.
A very true love.
Unconditional one.

Then I saw bombs falling down from the high sky. I was the first to witness the scene. I told everyone in the camp to leave. It was a plain land, where we could find no place to hide. We were hopeless.

One after another, those bombs, looking so harmless, landed on the ground. Strange as it might sound, they were in pink and as beautiful as water lilies. Once they landed on the ground, they were silently waiting. Waiting for the right moment to cause great explosion.
To harm innocent people.

He, and his child, and I started running away. We had to get away as far as we could from those bombs. Across the street, there was a store run by the enemies. In it, there were two security guys. They were enemies. We had no choice. Bombs were about to explode. Nowhere else to go.

All of sudden, with his bare hands, he started to move those bombs as far as he could from where we stood. He said those bombs could kill anyone or anything within 70 meters. And if he could move all the bombs near us away enough, we would have a good chance to survive. He did move every bomb as far as 50 meters away, but it was still 20 meters short. So, we had to move 20 meters away from them. We had nowhere else to go but to get into that store.
To save our lives, we would have to get into that enemy-owned store.

Over the high fence, we climbed, and he told us to wait, down by the fence. He said he by himself would go in to the store to check out. I knew he wouldn't just "check out" the place.
I knew he would risk his life and distract those security guys as a decoy. So that his son and I would be able to get into the store from a different door and hide ourselves in somewhere between ails, under high shelves. In front of our eyes, he got arrested. We saw him being taken away. From us.

I was crying. I felt tears running down on my cheek. As we all witnessed, all I could say to his son was that I was very proud of him. I told his son over and over again, "I'm very proud of him. He was doing his best to save us." And then I realized that I was talking about him with the past tense, which meant that I admitted his death. I hated myself for that. I should've never given up hope. Hope he would come back to us and be with us and make us a family and live happily ever after.

Along after my tears dried, a miracle happened.
He came back in one piece! At that time, the bombing was over.
On the ground, those bombs that didn't explode were still lying.
People were coming out from everywhere.
They were hiding and all alive.

Some people were checking on those bombs and found out that some of them were never meant to explode. The fake ones.

We felt relieved.
And we laughed with joy.
Joy for all of us being safe and alive.