In Part 3, after Guy has undergone an immense amount of trauma, Bradbury describes Guy's mental breakdown with fragmented flashbacks and similes in a stream of consciousness style.

His flesh gripped him and shrank as if it had been plunged in acid. He gagged. He saw Beatty, a torch, not moving, fluttering out on the grass. He bit at his knuckles. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, oh God, sorry. . . . He tried to piece it all together, to go back to the normal pattern of life a few short days ago before the sieve and the sand, Denham’s Dentifrice, moth voices, fireflies, the alarms and excursions, too much for a few short days, too much, indeed, for a lifetime.

The passage starts with a simile which describes Guy's physiological reaction to all the stress he's under: "his flesh [...] shrank as if it had been plunged in acid." After this, the writing moves back and forth from brief flashbacks (such as his memory of Beatty's death) and Guy's present reaction to the stress he's undergoing, such as biting his knuckles. Bradbury renders this moment in fragmented prose, a stream of consciousness combination of unexplained and contextless phrases and images. Guy tries verbal and physical coping mechanisms, but he cannot order his thoughts, as reflected by the writing style. These devices, used in conjunction, plunge readers deep into Guy's inner turmoil.