Think at last
We have not reached conclusion, when I
Stiffen in a rented house.
...
I that was near your heart was removed therefrom
To lose beauty in terror, terror in inquisition.
I have lost my passion: why should I need to keep it
Since what is kept must be adulterated?
...
Tenants of the house,
Thoughts of a dry brain in a dry season.
-T.S. Eliot, Gerontion

Having blundered through these two and a half years with near-perfect emotional detachment, my response on leaving camp for the last time is remarkably uncomplex, and expectedly bleak: a torpid vacancy finally dissipated, a stupor dispelled, a somnambulist snapping out of it, jumping up and ruffling his hair, a player dismissed from the charade, as the backdrop and properties creak and crumble (weather was instrumental to staging: scattered leaves whirling in the wind, rainclouds coagulating menacingly, portentous thunderclaps reverberating throughout the theatre). G wraps it up with absolute poise and cordiality, plays the game right through to its whimpering conclusion, while I stutter and stumble through the formalities, staunchly laconic to the end. I had not even the pensiveness which one expects would be appropriate on just such an occasion as I tottered along with lopsided gait, lugging back helmet, SBO, bloated field pack, the works. I would recount those moments (not as few as you'd think) when I voluntarily suspended the persona for the people who mattered, but, as usual, my memory is treacherously selective.