Bananas the size of . . . well . . . very big bananas, and round orange things that cannot be oranges because they are the size of melons. Large wooden bowls hold other things that look like apples, pears and berries, but so much bigger and in different shades of colour. The objects are clearly fruit but like nothing any of them have ever seen before, with an array of vibrant colours seeming more vivid in the otherwise bland grey room.

A dozen or more men stand conferring quietly at the far end of the room next to a set of doors. Several rough-hewn tables and chairs lie scattered about.

The difference of perceptions and of what the eye sees and matches to the experiences of life and the knowledge held by the viewer.

To Safa, the sights are jarring and only increase her already heightened anxious state. Prisons do not have fruit on display and they do not have wooden chairs and tables that can be smashed up to make weapons from. Prisons do not have mixed-gender communal rooms. Prisons do not require a female detainee to share a bathroom with a male detainee. They do not have open doors. This is not a prison, but it still feels like a prison. That alarms her. It upsets the black and white in her head, which has no room for grey uncertainty.

To Ben, the sight means a myriad of things. His mind is more open than Safa’s and less confined to the world of law and order. He sees nutritional food laid out, which tells him there is some effort put into providing care for the people meant to stay here. The rough-hewn tables and chairs tell him this is more building site than anything else, but again some effort has been made to provide at least a place to sit and eat. He sees open doors and a sense of security, but cannot fathom if they are secured within or from something without. The whole of it taken thus far speaks of a thing as yet unfinished.

Harry sees a POW camp. Enough said.

They look over to the dozen or more men. Safa sees security personnel dressed in paramilitary-style coveralls and wearing assault boots. She sees wide shoulders, straight backs, clean-shaven chins and military-grade haircuts.

Ben catches obscured glimpses of a tall, dark-haired man dressed in khaki talking to the men, but pausing after every sentence as though someone is translating his words. He sees the men staring from the man in khaki to someone else as they track the conversation.

Harry sees guards.

Safa looks round again. Still jarred. Still uncertain. Her proactive mind tells her to do something and take control.