"And the liquid began to flow. Gobs of it built up in the doorway, plopped to the ground. Billy was next-to-last human being to reach the door. The hobo was last. The hobo could not flow, could not plop. He wasn't liquid anymore. He was stone. So it goes" (Vonnegut 81).
This quote describes the prisoners of war getting out of the train car after arriving at the prison camp. In this picture the running water symbolizes the living passengers who are flowing liquid while the rocks symbolize the dead that have turned to "stone".
In this quote I believe Vonnegut is illustrating how death was viewed by the prisoners and the guards. Vonnegut dehumanizes the soldiers when he compares them to flowing liquid, and the hobo who he describes as a stone. As soldiers and military guards, most of the men have had personal experiences with death and have come desensitized in this situation. I think Vonnegut is drawing attention to this casual response to death as he compares the humans to inanimate objects.
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