What if there was not enough time? What if I could not get out in time? Those were the questions that ran through my head umpteenth times as I laid the dirty little devils on the floor. Ten seconds is all you have. Only ten seconds. As I set the things going, I bolted out of the house. Ten...my shoelace fell off...nine...I dropped my pistol.....eight....picking it up....seven,,,tripped and fell....six....FASTER...five...four...NO THERE'S A LOOSE FLOORBOARD....three....yes got my leg out.....almost there....two...almost there.....one...YES I AM OUT ALIVE.... The explosion was colossal, the house vanishing in to a massive fireball that sent up a fist of smoke that punched a heavy fist into the overcast sky. The roof of the house disintegrated, a spray of terracotta skyrocketing in the air. One moment the house was standing erect there, the next moment it collapsed as a blinding white light seemed to streak across the sky, as if it never seemed to exist once before. Broken cement, bricks and shattered glass shards flew in the air in all directions, with such a velocity that they turned into vicious shrapnel and missiles, slicing through a nearby passer-by and killing him instantly. I ducked behind a sturdy wall to avoid the dangerous missiles that spun in all direction. Now the whole place was a disastrous mess of rubble and strewn materials. As I signalled, the soldiers marched in to search for dead bodies on the floor. A heavy weight of exhaustion sank on me. Why am I doing this every day? Why am I sent to blow up people's houses all day long? Is it necessary, after even the opposing country had surrendered, to cause their citizens so much harm, so much despair? I hoped the war would end. Not because I might be blown up due to the fact that i might set off a dynamite by accident, but it was the despair on the peoples face as they saw their broken house. Nothing. There's nothing they can do. Nothing. It just a sense of hopelessness and despair. But it hurts my heart all the time.