It happened quickly. Another splintering crack of ice and suddenly I was on my back, looking up through the semi-open door at only sky. The truck was at ninety degrees. That was all I needed. Instead of pushing the coffin off me against gravity, like I’d been trying to do, I pulled the chrome handle towards the roof of the truck. Before we’d tipped, that would have been like trying to bench press the thing but now the coffin was basically standing on its end. I only had to tip it over. Ignoring the fact that it was making a mortar and pestle of my forearm, I gave it all I had. And, finally, something went right.

It tipped.

I apologise if I haven’t properly conveyed my enthusiasm. It tipped!

The coffin slammed into the roof (now the wall), propping diagonally above me and, lid splayed, scattering dust and bones everywhere across the back wall (now the floor), and freeing my hand (now flat) in the process. I rolled to the side just in case it settled back down, clutching my mangled hand, feeling the wetness, but not yet having the willpower to survey the damage. It was either too cold or I was in too much shock to register the pain properly.

I got to my feet and looked up at the sky. The strap I’d thrown still snaked its way up and out above me. I thought I heard yelling – my name, probably. I wasn’t sure. I looked around my prison. There was no way I could scale the floor-cum-wall with a brutalised arm. The strap wasn’t hooked to anything, so I couldn’t climb it. And, of course, the entire truck was still sinking. Water lapped at my ankles, filling from a leak sprung in one of the walls. Eskimos may have a thousand words for snow, but no word can describe how numbingly cold the water was. Years ago when I was waiting for the results from the fertility clinic – after I’d discovered that scrotal heat was apparently a factor in sperm counts, and started swapping briefs for boxers, lugging a bag of servo ice over my shoulder up to our bathtub – I might have been excited by the potential of water this cold. But not now. It was anaesthetic. It was heart-stopping. The thought nudged its way into my head that this is how they make caviar; they stun sturgeon fish in cold water before cutting them open.