- You thought that last poem was short? Take a look at this one—it's only one word long!
- Near the top of the page, we see the word "Sunrise." The rest of the page is blank.
- If we think of these poems as being read out loud, all this blank space comes across as a long moment of silence.
- The next paragraph doesn't start until near the bottom of the next page. The text looks more like what we expect when we think of the paragraphs in a novel—it's prose, not poetry.
- For clarity's sake, we'll refer to this kind of text—where the writing goes all the way across the page—as the "prose part of the novel." The text we saw earlier, which is centered on the page and usually consists of a series of short, sing-songy lines, we'll refer to as "poems."
- Tayo isn't sleeping well. He has strange, confused dreams that take place in several languages: Spanish, Japanese, and Laguna.
- Tayo lies in bed and watches the sun rise. He hasn't been able to sleep ever since his memories got all mixed up with the present. If he can kind of meditate and focus on a single image (like a deer), he can calm down enough to sleep.
- But more often than not, that image calls up another memory. The deer makes him think of the time he went hunting with Rocky, which reminds him of the last day he and Rocky spent together preparing to fight the Japanese on an island in the Pacific.
- Just like Tayo's memory, the narrative starts to slip around in time. It's like we're Harry Potter, peering into Tayo's thoughts. Now we're back on that Pacific Island with Tayo.
- The corporal next to Tayo and Rocky tells them he had a dream that the Japanese would get them that day.
- Tayo notices that the corporal's white skin sweats just like his own. He thinks about how everyone's skin looks dark after they're dead.
- That's why Tayo has a problem with killing Japanese soldiers. They look too familiar to him. When the sergeant orders him to shoot some Japanese prisoners, Tayo can't do it.
- One of the Japanese prisoners seems to have his Uncle Josiah's face. When the other soldiers shoot the prisoners, Tayo becomes hysterical—they've shot Josiah.
- Rocky tries to convince Tayo that they haven't killed Josiah—only some Japanese soldiers. But they have to give Tayo some medicine to calm him down. The medic says he's suffering from "battle fatigue" and that the hallucinations are caused by malarial fever (IV.4).
- Rocky is certain that, by serving as soldiers in the Philippines, he and Tayo are doing something good and honorable. Tayo tries to listen to Rocky but he just feels icky and sad about the whole situation.
- Back in the present, Tayo snaps out of his reverie and tells himself to stay busy so he doesn't sit around dwelling on his memories.
- He goes outside to milk the nanny goat and shares some milk with the cat. It seems like he's on some sort of ranch.
- Back in the kitchen, a candle reminds him of Josiah and makes him want to cry. He tries to think about something else, like coffee.
- The drought years have returned, and Tayo remembers the last drought that happened after the end of WWI, when he and his uncle hauled water for the sheep and burned cactus for the cows to eat.
- This time there's no wagon or barrels for hauling water. One of the mules has died, and the other one is blind. Pretty depressing.
- This time the drought has been going on for six years.
- In the jungle, it was all rain, all the time. In fact, there was so much rain that it made the soldiers' wounds turn green as they marched through the mud to the prison camp.
- Tayo is slipping back into his bad memories of the war. In the jungle he prays for dry air to help heal Rocky's wounded leg and to keep them from slipping as they carry Rocky in a blanket.
- Tayo blames the rain for killing Rocky, more than the Japanese grenade or the miles of marching.
- As they march, Tayo tells a story to give the soldiers strength and encourage the corporal not to drop his end of the blanket.
- Suddenly a flash flood sweeps Rocky and the corporal off their feet. They drop Rocky, and Tayo scrambles to pick him up again before the Japanese notice.
- Tayo damns the rain.