His body movements were contorted, he was biting hard on his tongue, blinking rapidly, his eyes moving upwards, his body, the parts of his body, felt alien to him and appeared to have a different shape and structure; he was observing them as though they were not his limbs, he was intensely pale, unable to swallow the saliva build-up in his mouth that poured out like he was spewing water, and he had an intense feeling of embarrassment. Yes, embarrassment.

Two women emerged from separate ends of the big brown room, both in dressing gowns of different quality, one was silk, in a dark shade of blue, and skimmed the floor; the other was a pink robe made from towelling that hovered unevenly over the knees of the wearer. Knees that had been heavily knelt on in their life. Both women were standing in silence as the screaming and now sobbing was reducing the man to crumple his body down towards the polished floor; the exhaustion of his emotion made the sounds decrease in volume, now the crying was the dominant force, replacing the anger, the repetition of why have you done this to me becoming the main accusation. An accusation directed at these two women but without the need to move towards them or even look at them. He felt colder and started to shake at first, a shiver, then uncontrollably, a full-blown shaking, a kind of paroxysm that took over and his crying was now a whimper and his whys turned to please, you mustn’t do this to me, please, and then even those words started to peter out into my boy, my baby boy, and by this time he was curled on the floor, trying to make himself into the tiniest ball of human that he could possibly become; the words stopped and the sobbing decreased and he pissed himself all over the floor and that brought a silence, he remained shivering and wet in his own urine. The two women were still stood, the blood had gone from their faces, and their look was of both a horror and a sympathy and Lomita was crying.

Manita disappeared and came back with a blanket and some cloth and went towards the now inert Ever and wrapped him in the blanket. He was aware of its soft warmth but could feel even in his moment of isolated epileptic seizure that it must be cashmere, his skin crawled; he let the dark beige blanket fall to the floor. Manita started to mop the urine with the cloth, a cloth that was wholly inadequate for the job. Lomita was stock still and the crying was silent now, tears making tracks down her cheeks forming their own decision about destination, where they would end up, how far they would travel.

He was now in a postictal phase.