As the bombs approach, he is in shock. His first thought is, "This was not to be believed." Then, he thinks immediately of those that he left behind in the city. He thinks of Faber and Mildred, and implores them to "Run!...Get out, get out of there!" He remembers that Clarisse is already gone, and that Faber should hopefully be out of the city, but he imagines Mildred in a room somewhere, watching her t.v. walls, oblivious to what is going to happen to her. He imagines her
"wildly empty face, all by itself in the room, touching nothing, starved and eating of itself,"
and then oddly, he remembers where he had first met her, in Chicago.
After the bombs hit, he lies on the ground, "gasping and crying," and the first part of Ecclesiastes pops back into his head. He repeats it over and over so that he won't forget it, and then shouts against the after-winds, with all of the other men. And then, his thoughts turn to the future, to what they would do next. The men gather and start walking, back to the city, to start again. The book doesn't describe Montag having any specific feelings about his city being bombed, just a desire to start over and create something better out of the ashes.
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