Chinese Accordion

I took an elevator to China. The elevator packed people in by folding each person into a canvas pocket; it felt like being pressed into the side of a folding accordion. There were hordes of us in there. The doors opened and we filed out onto an enormous beach of reddish sand. The tide was coming in fast, and it was getting dark.

I turned around and entered a beachfront mansion, walked down red-carpeted hallways that slanted upwards. I reached a banister, and my dad was around the corner, talking on an old fashioned phone. The air was heavy with premonition, and I realized that World War II had started. Someone had just told my dad over the phone.