"The water was dead. So it goes. Air was trying to get out of that dead water. Bubbles were clinging to the walls of the glass, too weak to get out" (Vonnegut 101).
This picture shows a water glass with a few bubbles along the edge, as described in the book. In this scene, Billy is in a ward for nonviolent mental patients in a veterans' hospital, three years after the end of World War II. The "dead" water reflects how Billy is feeling, tired and disillusioned with life. One again, the anti-war sentiments of Slaughterhouse Five appear.
Vonnegut uses the water as a metaphor in this scene, again reinforcing the ideas of the true cost of war. Billy had witnessed the death and destruction caused by war firsthand, particularly the bombing of Dresden. Billy still seems haunted by the war and is disillusioned with his life. His jaded world is the "dead" water, and he is like the bubbles, unable to summon the strength to leave the "water"- in his case, the way he has retreated into himself. The toll that war takes on people is brought up again in this scene. This scene also raises the question if these feelings, like some other events in the book, were based off of Vonnegut's experiences, an idea made more valid by the fact that Vonnegut did suffer from depression at about the time Slaughterhouse Five was written.
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