I put on weight. Not much, just a few pounds I think, but even that was contrary to the general wasting process to which I had become peacefully resigned. And I had sneezed of course, but that was neither here nor there. Sometimes I felt ill, nauseous, but I guessed there was something in the injections I received to suppress my ability to vomit, a tactic opted for, no doubt, on the very first day of my arrival when I had so ungraciously rejected Tom’s first efforts at feeding me. The house with its many small rooms, heavy wide doors, angled windows, mirrors and paintings, seemed to be absorbing me in some way, pressing in on me, constricting, trying to digest me, always watchful. At night I would lie awake and listen to the winter wind scratching around in the woodland outside, lifting the dead leaves, making the trees crackle like fire, and I would wonder if I should ever leave the place alive. In my dreams I began to see them reaching for me, probing inside my skull with their clever fingers, teasing at my innards, producing a wayward organ by some trick, some sleight of hand which did not require incision of my flesh. And they would talk to me and baffle me with indecipherable conundrums.

I began to long for the hospital, its patchy discipline, its superficial concern for its own survival, its watery formality and poor standards, its inability to justify itself in the things that it did and the way that it did them. I could hide there, whether I was alone or in the company of thirty other men. I was invisible, dare I say inviolate, and they could not reach me, did not want to, save for the odd token gesture for appearance’s sake. But it was different at One World. John and Anna were ambitious, apparently insatiable in their pursuit of ‘improvement’ in my ‘condition’. There was no mention of my being sent back to the hospital. Where would it all end? More importantly, how could I escape? I could not, of course; I could only endure. I would eat, I would shit, feel the cold, but after all there was no other option for me but to endure.