- Billy closes his eyes and travels to May 1945, two days after the end of World War II in Europe (the war doesn't end in the Pacific theater until August 1945).
- He and five other American prisoners are traveling back to their Dresden slaughterhouse for souvenirs of war.
- Billy is warm and happy: he and the prisoners had managed to take food, wine, a stamp collection, a camera, a stuffed owl, and a clock from an abandoned house.
- The owners had left their house because they had heard that the Russians were coming, and that they were doing terrible things to people they found.