I come to with my ears ringing and then it’s a few seconds before they’ve gripped the back of my neck and put me back under again.
“Virus!” they scream, beating the sides of the white-washed cell with bloody night-sticks, “Virus! Virus!”
Water chokes me and I cough my throat raw, eyes and nose streaming fetid water and mucous.
Who knows how long I’ve been here.
It’s hard to put all the pieces in order but one of them is the lights going out, first from the streetlamps, followed by the neighbour’s houses and eventually to our own, blacking out the room where my wife and I sat by the window waiting for the sirens to stop.
I’m almost unconscious the next time my face is thrust into the basin but then I’m brought back to awareness by the beating of their sticks all over my shoulders and back.
This time I come up from the longest time without air yet and I know that if I go under again they’ll probably do it until I drown. I only have one more chance to try to see their faces.
There isn’t time.