I unwrap myself from the tangle of arms, and look down, and scream.

The camp leader gives me a tour of the grounds. He’s a taciturn tour guide. There isn’t much to show.

The main stone building contains the common room, and the dining hall. The fireplace is crackling, and enclosed by three mismatched armchairs that look like rescues from the tip. A short bookcase at the opposite end of the room is lined with trashy paperbacks. There’s a gas heater and several black leather beanbags.
The wooden cabins aren’t far. There’s three or four, each with two rooms, and a double bed or pair of bunk beds by the window. Squat buildings, like fat toads, painted forest green. Foliage affords the boarders some privacy from the main dirt path that we’re currently on.

He does more than respect my needs for personal space, walking quietly over an arm’s reach away on my right. He’s an out-of-work engineer. He works up here for petty cash on the weekends. He doesn’t meet my eyes.

It was advertised as a rural retreat, a quiet getaway. We’ve booked a few nights. I felt the need to ‘recharge’ but I’m not sure what that means, given the current context. I am trying to ‘getaway’ from life. I’ve brought nothing but a stack of books.

How many other guests staying? I ask.

He shrugs. He has the physique of someone who enjoys life outdoors, with his broad shoulders and tanned skin, even as the clouds are gathering. His dark hair is tucked under a dirty baseball cap. A few, he says.

They’re in the common room that night. It’s a nightly fight for the three armchairs, so worn the stuffing is creeping out of the splits. The short-haired Asian woman is in her mid-twenties and wears owl glasses and a permanent scowl. The man in a leather jacket is either found outdoors chain smoking, or indoors by the gas heater, seeing as he can’t do both at once. There’s a card game I’m not invited to happening by the fireplace, and involving money, of which I have none. Three heads, one silver with greys, are bowed in thought. One has an accent. I excuse myself for the night.

Alex is in bed. We’re not sharing our cabin with anybody, and the lights are off when I let myself in. He asks me if this is what I wanted. Are you relaxed?

He checks, every night, and I’m ashamed that he has to ask. I’m fine. I might do some writing tomorrow. It’s a sign, when I’m happy to write. He nods, satisfied.

The next morning, I wake up with dirt streaks and grass stains on my feet. A not-insignificant bruise blooms on my left calf, a rosy eggplant. I attribute this to my welcome tour until I notice some bloody scratches on my wrist. I don’t recall fighting my way through bracken, or using my arms at all.

It’s a quiet day. I barely leave the cabin, or speak to anyone. The morning mist lingers until early afternoon, washing out the dawn and painting the world obscure. Shadows of shades of grey drift in and out of view. It’s cool and there’s a light drizzle. I pull on an ugly hearts jumper. Dinner is roasted lamb rump with gravy and baby carrots. I write a few pages in the evening and but largely contemplate the direction in which I’m taking my life.

He lets me crawl into the space between his chest and the bed, a cavity I occupy and fill, protected by his web of arms.

The next morning, I unwrap myself from the tangle of arms, and look down, and scream.

Thin wires, looping in and out between my fingers, piercing through the webbing, have fastened my hands together. Someone has stapled my hands. There are staples piercing the back of my hands, through my palms. There are staples running through each fingernail on the right to the corresponding nail on the left. There is barbed wire wrapped around my wrists. I look like I’m fixed in prayer.

My feet are bound together.

I scream until he wakes up.

There’s no blood. It stings when he pries the staples out, when he slides the entire length of the wire through my finger webbing, but it doesn’t bleed. When I forget to stay calm and struggle and panic, my skin tears and tiny rivers run down my arms. I untangle my feet frantically.

I was in the exact same position when I woke up. The same position as I fell asleep in the night before.

I don’t sleepwalk, in reply to Alex. I’m trembling. Even if I did, there was no possible way I could have mobilised in and out of bed. The wire was wrapped so tightly it left sharp crisscrossing indentations, and puncture wounds.

I draw the curtains, leaving the cabin in the dark. I scour the room for objects out of place, drawers open when they should be closed. I scan the carpet and the soft earth for footprints. I call the police.

Hi, you've called triple zero, the operator's voice is female. It is always female. Please state whether you require -

Then it cuts out. Replaced by soft static, and - barely audible - muted tidal breathing. Like someone is holding a cloth over the receiver, and listening. Listening intently.

I hang up.

The engineer is in the middle of his duties (whatever they are) when I catch up to him. He's pacing rapidly down the dirt path, almost as if he's trying to out-walk me. Who has access to our cabins, other than us? I ask.

I've got a master key. But not on me. It's locked away, for emergencies. He looks impatient. Why, have you misplaced something?

The assumption that I've lost something, as opposed to having it stolen, is an underhanded accusation but I am persistent. I have reason to believe that someone has been in my room. Nothing's been taken, or misplaced. Nothing's been broken. That leaves only one way in.

What he does next, I don't expect. He makes a backhand swipe at me; too far for it to come into contact, nor is it intended to land, but the threat is clear. Look, lady - some of us have work to do. He doesn't turn around again.

I can't eat breakfast. My throat is tight as a knot, and desert-dry. I can feel the palpitations in my carotids.

The young hipster Asian woman has just selected a paperback. I clamour over beanbags to reach her, hunching over her, desperate like a beggar. She barely moves a muscle but her eyes flick up over her glasses to take me in.

Hey, I start,  I don't know you very well, but I'm Rebecca. But I was wondering if you'd noticed if someone's been snooping around in your room lately - I think someone was in mine last night, but I can't find any evidence, and the staff won't believe me or help me investigate -

No, she replies, and continues reading.

I think, I say firmly, as we're both female, and both vulnerable, that we should stick together. Especially if there's a creep staying in the cabins, we should really be on alert, and let each other know if there's anything strange going on -

She takes in my unbrushed hair, my red-rimmed eyes, teary with fear. I can't help you, she says, slowly, patronisingly, drawing out every syllable. And I don't want to. If you've been inviting strange men to your room -

I haven't -

- it's none of my concern. Stop trying to make it everyone else's problem.

That night, we double-lock the door from the inside and push the desk in front. It's a flimsy barricade; the desk isn't even hardwood. But we're a bit short on furniture choices, other than the bed. I feel that sleeping is impossible and am convinced I spent the night tossing and turning, semi-conscious, listening to the second hand tick.

Dawn peers around the heavy drapes, still drawn closed. Sleep smooths the furrows out of his forehead. It's amazing that you can look so innocent in the mornings, with the creases and wrinkles gone. He's breathing deep even breaths. I'm wide awake, and I check my wrists and ankles. Nothing out of the ordinary.

My phone emits several low buzzes on the dresser. I haven't checked it in days; wasn't even aware that I had one. There are several unread messages; some alerts from social media updates, some unread emails, three texts from this morning from a number I don't recognise. Strangely, the number's been saved in my address book.

I open the text message. It's me.

It's a photo of me, naked, eyes closed, in a red velvet armchair. My body is distorted, in an unnatural position I could never have maintained awake. My head lolls, unsupported by my neck, in a way that suggests that I'm asleep - heavily sedated.

The next two are also of me.

I check the door.

The desk is two inches out. Not where we left it last night.

I've tried explaining the photos to Alex, over and over again. How I couldn't possibly have taken them myself, achieved that level of ridiculous flexibility, shifted the desk without help, how I didn't even know where the photos have been taken. The armchair, much more extravagant than the salvaged three in the common room, appears to be in some wooden structure, with straw strewn all over the concrete floor. The lighting is poor and it's out of focus but there are hay bales behind the chair in the background. Neither of us have ever been made aware of a barn on the camp grounds.

However it happened, you can't deny that that's you. In the photo. He sounded resigned.

No, I can't. But I can't be held responsible -

I'm sorry. But without you helping someone to get in, it doesn't add up.

The engineer, he has a master key -

It doesn't make a difference. It's not like they dragged you to the barn -

And what makes you think they didn't?

He sighed. Look outside, he said, pointing to the ground.

Even I could recognise my little Size 7 footsteps, one after another, imprinted into the soft mud.

I lifted the soles of my feet. They were caked.

***

It stormed that night. Stratus clouds had been accumulating for days, and the winds had swept them into threatening funnels of cumulonimbus. Rain pelted the cabins with an unrelenting ferocity, and even low-lying trees fell victim to lightening flashes that cut up the sky.

Dinner was soup, of some description. Alex and I were barely on speaking terms. We had spoken to no one else about the photos. The common area was, as expected, crowded, now that no one was at leisure to go outside for a smoke. We were all hostages of the weather. The Asian woman was steadfastly ignoring me.

The camp leader entered via the glass double doors, his windcheater wet from the rain, his stupid baseball cap soaked through. With water streaming down his face, he delivered the bad news: the roof had blown off one of the cabins and was uninhabitable tonight. Ours.

The company in attendance looked at Alex, then at me - on separate sides of the room. Silence. Finally, the Asian woman offered the spare bunk bed in her room (she was occupying the top bunk), but that'd only be enough to fit one of us - she wouldn't hear of us both squishing into the bottom.

Her meaning was clear. Clear enough that I suddenly attracted the alienating, hateful eyes of all the friends I hadn't made in the last few days. I caught the stare of a pair of eyes I hadn't seen before - witheringly cold, and ice-blue like a glacier.

Grab a sleeping bag, said the camp leader. The hay can get prickly.

The garish red armchair was in front of an old wooden desk which an out-of-date computer that still turned on. Skid marks and floor impressions showed me how and where it had been dragged for last night's photo shoot, exposing its final resting position to be under the solitary naked hanging bulb responsible for lighting up the room. The entire space was about the size of a small chapel.

The computer was, by some miracle, connected to wifi. I couldn't risk using my social media accounts, but signed into Steam under Alex's username. One player, thefierydevil, was online.

Hey bro, I typed. I think I'm in a bit of trouble.

Dude. What are you on about?

If anything happens to me tonight, call the police. Just so you know - I love you, alright? Stay safe.

I hit ENTER, and then the light goes off.

***

What happens after this is a bit of a mystery, even to me. I remember crawling into the space under the desk, and hearing heavy footsteps approaching the desk. Someone occupies the armchair, the seat that I had been warming not a minute ago. I try to squeeze by the desk legs at the sides, by the armchair.

Then there's a struggle. A pickaxe is involved. It gets hard to breathe as he closes in on my throat. I see a flash of ice-blue eyes. Then I stab someone with something, feeling it go in right between the ribs, the way we're taught to in school, and wrench it a full 90 degrees, which is not what we're taught in school. He releases my throat and my first breath is freezing cold. It's all a bit hazy. I just keep seeing those eyes.

Someone collapsed on me today.

He was easily 6'1', maybe 6'2'. Large African man, young, in his late twenties, with muscles on his muscles. He'd come in today for removal of stitches after lacerating his middle finger punching through a glass door. Common complaint. It's either that or a window. Which is surprising because you think that people would learn.

One minute, we were threading the suture cutter underneath his bright blue nylon stitches, deftly removing the knotted string from scab and skin. The next, he was on the floor. From my place next to him on the examination bed, I watched him fall, graceful in slow-mo, past my tucked knees, his shoulder the pivot as his deltoid rolled past in one fluid motion, to land softly on his cushioned upper arm, his head lolling unsupported as if straight from the guillotine. It all felt very natural.

By the time I got to him he was ragdoll-limp, and his eyes a dull empty grey. I reached for the emergency buzzer but within 15 seconds he was himself again. Perhaps a bit confused about being sideways on the floor, but otherwise alert and orientated. I thought about his steely dead irises just a moment ago, and ended up asking for a pen-torch and routine observations anyway. (Pupils equal and reactive to light. Observations within normal limits, unremarkable.)

'You right to stand?' I held out a hand. He took it with his injured hand, his wounds opened in the fall. His blood ran through the network of my joint lines and palmar creases. I supported him onto the bed and lowered the headrest.

'Call my ex,' he croaked.

There was no answer on her end.

'Must've been dehydrated,' he muttered, to me and himself. 'Haven't eaten this morning.'

I murmured non-committal assent, to make him feel better about himself. Common problem, I said, happens to everyone getting their stitches out, needles, blood samples. Two nurses began cleaning up the mess, bandaging up his finger and his wounded pride. I listen to them coo and cluck like hens and am grateful for their warm maternal presence, allowing myself to be comforted by that allegorical blanket. I am not a clucker and have never been. When I try, I squawk. Like metal grating on metal. Professional, impersonal, impassive, indifferent, deadpan. I sound like I am not surprised by anything.

Scrubbing my dirtied hand with chlorhexidine, I dialled the number again.

Woman's voice. Impatient. There are babies crying in the background, at least two, and the heavy rustling of movement heard over the receiver. She had either pinned the phone between her ear and shoulder or was juggling it from right to left among a handful of other household duties.

I explained the situation. 'He's just collapsed during a consultation in hospital. You were his first choice of contact. Can you take him home?'

A pause. Then a frustrated sigh, followed by, 'No, I can't take him home. You can't be calling me like this. I'm not his next of kin. Did he tell you that we've broken up? A long time ago?'

'He said that you were his ex-girlfriend, yes.'

'We're no longer together. He's no longer my responsibility.'

I silently watched his eyes change. Shining. Hopeful.

'I'll contact his family - no, you know what? I don't have time for this. He can call his family. I've got things to do. Don't call me again.' The line went dead.

'How is she?' he asked, when I put the phone down.

I contemplated the truth, then settled on, 'She's busy. Is there anyone else you can call?'

In that moment, his eyes reverted to their deadened state, glassy and opaque. 'Don't worry about it,' he said.

The nurses had done their job and his forearm was now delicately wrapped, from elbow to fingertip, in layers of fluffy cotton and returned to the plastic splint. I heard them adjust the brace, fix the velcro straps. When they left, they revealed a hollow man, his eyes dry but cast skyward, desperately examining something on the ceiling invisible to me. His good hand held his forehead. I could hear him consciously inhaling, exhaling and inhaling, counting the seconds between each measured breath. He lay there for twenty, thirty minutes, counting breaths.

I finished my medical note.

'Is it common?' he asked. 'For that to happen.'

'Very common. Happens to the best of us.' I reworded. 'Happens to all of us, actually.'

'Thanks,' he said. He wasn't unsteady on his feet, wasn't dizzy or seeing stars. I offered to walk him out, but he held out a hand as I got up out of my chair and said that he was fine.

And so he left me, alone, in that room that smelt of bleach and macerated tissue.

White poplar means time.

He walked three metres behind, eyes fixed on my back. I didn't care where I walked.

The drizzle left my forehead damp and my hair a nest of glistening droplets, hanging in the night air like a warm blanket. Petrichor drifted up from the pillows of autumn leaves on the sidewalk.

We'd just had dinner at a dingy Japanese eatery, slightly off the main road. The restaurant was empty save one other couple. It was well past what could be considered conventional dinnertime.

He'd ordered a plate of gyoza to share, and they arrived in a hot plate the size of a pizza box, each one fat and greasy, sizzling in its own oil. The aroma of fried dumpling skin was irresistible but I'd lost my appetite. I wanted to walk. I picked dutifully at the offerings and he'd ordered a beer. I declined a drink and he fretted that the date wasn't progressing well. I could tell; his forehead furrows in a way I can't explain but have since memorised, his eyes between myself and the door wondering whether I would get up and leave any minute, or whether he should.

Dinner was a short affair. We left the restaurant after 20 minutes, and meandered through smaller and smaller streets until we were incidentally facing a graffitied alleyway, off Chinatown. Our only light sources were appropriately tacky red lanterns, strung between the two rooftops, illuminating the dustbins in the far corner.

'Aren't you coming?' I asked. He hesitated. 'It doesn't look safe.'

'Why, are you scared?' I mocked - then relented. 'There's a bar on the other side. I promise. And if we get attacked in this alleyway, don't worry - I'll protect you.'

He muttered something under his breath, thought you didn't want a drink, or it might've been, thought you didn't drink. Either would've been true; I wasn't much for alcohol when we were in a relationship.

I'd lied; it was several alleyways further down that we found the place. Flashing red neon lights lit the way. Beakers and conical flasks artfully lined the back wall, filled with unidentifiable coloured liquids, illuminated against the bare brick. This time, we were the only patrons. I seated myself at a booth, crossed my legs, and noticed a tear in the leather. Picking mindlessly at the stuffing, 'Would you like a drink?'

He slid into the booth opposite me, jittery like a nervous meerkat, caged, lonely without its friends. I insisted, but he refused, saying that he had to drive later. Suit yourself. I tiptoed up to the bar and ordered a cocktail.

'That'll be $12, darling,' the bartender said. She had hair greener than meadow grass, straightened to dry straw, in endearing pigtails. Her lips were stained plum purple, and a nosering wriggled distractingly when she breathed. She wore striped tights, Alice-In-Wonderland style.

I gave her my card, and she looked at me.

'There's a surcharge on card - but you know what. It's a quiet Tuesday night; you can have it on the house.' In that moment, I could've kissed her. She jerked her head towards my 'date', slouching in his seat, blue light from his phone disrupting the aesthetic. 'He bothering you?'

I shook my head.

'Don't let boys push you around. You know, when push comes to shove, they're all talk. They ain't got no balls. So don't let him get in your way.' She turned around, resuming polishing the glassware. 'You let me know when he wants to order a Diet Coke, or a babyccino, hey, hun?'

I dared him to come upstairs, to the second floor.

It was a rundown, unused gymnasium that could now be hired out as a function space. The lights were off as we ascended, him pausing halfway to ask if we were trespassing, and me denying it without turning around. 'There's something I want to show you,' I'd said.

Illuminated only from the outside, the space was even eerier through the frosted glass windows. Gymnastic rings dangled from metal chains, long and short, haphazard. One plastic potplant sat in a sorry corner, lifeless. Graffiti, not like the graffiti art that plastered the buildings on our way in, but callous tags, jagged and angular, polluted the yellowing walls.

But this was my favourite: a broken wheelchair, mounted by its handles on an off-angle. Like an angry asylum inpatient had hauled it up there in a fit of psychosis. Positioned in the corner, above the entrance, so that a careless observer might miss it - only to see the shadows of its spokes stretch like spiders across the walls as city lights outside blink on and off.

'Isn't it beautiful?' I grinned, perhaps wickedly. 'Isn't it just perfect?'

In all sincerity, I thought it was. Everything from the dust on the plastic leaves to the scuffs and scratches on the floorboards only contributed to the aesthetic of the room. It even smelt musty. I imagined into existence the squeaking of rats; of course, there were none.

'Let's get outta here,' he said.

So then, we walked.

I was unfazed by his reaction. Nothing could dampen this mood, this wide-eyed baby-like wonder, this blueish-grey tinted innocence. Nothing could touch me, safety enveloped in a blanket of mist, under the watchful eyes of city streetlamps and gaudy lanterns.

I led us through a city garden, heading towards its centrepiece, a water fountain. Skeletal branches of oak and plane trees intertwined, forming an arching canopy overhead; white poplars lined the walkways like sentries on watch. White poplars, I thought, meant time. On the left, the state museum and its facades of glass; on the right, an old nineteenth-century pavilion, a flagpole protruding from its domed ceiling, lit up by spotlight. In front of that, was the white fountain.

I love the sound of all water - the trickling tinkle of a shallow stream, the deep rumbling of an unsettled sea, the relentless pounding of rain against concrete (hard enough to see it bounce), and the generous gurgling of a well-fed fountain, the plop into the waiting pool below. I sat on the rim, trench coat crumpled in my lap and warm autumn rain soaking through my paper-thin dress. I motioned for him to sit beside me - but he stood, watching me, with desolate eyes.

'You've changed,' he said, 'haven't you?'

I remember a story someone told me, about riding through this park on a motorcycle, before dawn on a winter morning. He'd worn wool under his riding gloves and a balaclava under his helmet, and he was cold and he was late. The fog was thick like milk; he could see barely two feet in front of him. In that moment, he felt the urge to ride, wind in his face, free, through the silent park - and so he stripped off his double-gloving, ripping off his headgear and with it the balaclava, and opened himself up to the cold. His knuckles turned pale then blue, frozen in place around his handles. The air pierced his cheeks, a thousand needles; his eyes watered. He rode for two or three blocks before putting his protection back on. But, he said afterwards, it was the most magical minute of my life.

On that warm autumn night, I felt the veins in his fingers melt, felt the stinging sensation subside, and the reinstation of wool against my skin. I wanted to tell him, wrapped in safety, that I'd learnt a new appreciation, and that I'd never felt happier. I knew he smelled - had always smelled - of fresh showers and spice, refreshing, like a gin and tonic with a slice of lemon. And I knew, pressed against his jacket, I could drink it in right there and then. But I was pressed against the fountain, surrounded by a bed of white and pink roses in full bloom, covered in glittering dewdrops, their petals outstretched, sending their perfume into the sky. I was already drunk, on flowers.

'Yes,' I said softly, 'I know.'

Ringleaders

Ringleaders, was the store name. Diamond experts.

I tripped on the carpet getting into the lift and felt out of place and awkward instantly. It was located on the second floor, away from the bustling shopping mall on street level.

In the lift, mirrors formed all four walls, and I looked up at his face to avoid looking at myself otherwise. He had his business face on; square-jawed, clean-shaven, and some muscle tension showing over his taut cheekbones. I felt nervous and girly. Silly.

The doors opened onto a neat blue-carpeted, wood-panelled office. A glass case featuring a small selection of jewellery stood a few metres from the glass door. It was nothing like dark velveted jewellery chain stores we had frequented up until now, stores in which gleaming diamonds seemingly floated in a sea of spotlight from all angles. Two cobalt-blue sofas sat on opposite ends of the large room. No one was at the reception desk.

Struck by a sudden attack of the nerves, I clutched Alex's arm with every intention of leaving, but we must have triggered a door alarm somewhere in the office and a man appeared, thin but with a slight belly, hair definitely greying but perhaps also thinning, in a grey shirt and a purple tie.

I noticed the tie right away. Aubergine, I thought, knowing of only one other man who had worn a purple tie. I had no fond impressions of that ex-boyfriend.

The grey shirt featured loud patterns in a contrasting grey that weren't to my taste, being adverse to boldness. On his left hand, a generous ruby set in a wide intricate band of gold glowered at me. But even as he approached and I was being swept away by a tidal wave of insecurity and anxiety, he seemed happy to see us and not in any way malicious.

'Hi,' Alex started. 'We were just looking for some diamonds..?'

He had opened vaguely and all three of us knew it. The question betrayed our ignorance in the way of diamonds and jewellery.

Warren, which we later discovered was his name, led us towards one of the cabinets. In it were two dozen designs of a variety of rings, some engagement, some not - and others. A set of particularly beautiful diamonds earrings winked at me.

He began to explain, pulling out examples of rings he'd designed as he went. I won't bore you with everything I learnt that day, but we explored solitaire rings versus halo settings versus side accents and three-stones; round brilliant cuts as compared to princess cut, squarer cuts like the emerald or the Asscher, or stranger cuts like the heart or the pear. We discussed the anatomy of a diamond stone; the table, the crown, the girdle and the pavilion, and the different faces of the diamond - the star facets, the upper and lower girdle facets, the pavilion main and the culet, which is the bottom of the diamond. We discussed the elements of ring design: the prongs (four or six), the shoulders, the bridge and the band, or the sitting area.

I learnt that in an ideal cut, the table should be 60% of the girdle, and the pavilion 60% of the depth, to allow for the best light refraction. But hearing Warren talk, I also learnt about his background. His parents were both gemologists, and he himself had taken an apprenticeship in lapidary, making him an expert in both. He spoke highly of the teachers he'd trained under, having been warned not to take an apprenticeship at chain stores. He talked about the dying art of lapidary, and the corruption in the diamond business at every level, from the suppliers, to the laboratory appraisers and diamond valuers, to the authorities who define the international grading systems and their loopholes.

He's quite chatty, I observed, waiting patiently to get a word in edgewise, but amiably so. It was the way his eyes lit up that I recognised. It was the way mine lit up thinking about pharmacy - its practitioners and its patients, the problems and the politics. It was the way my eyes swelled at the subject of drug abuse, the misuse of pharmaceuticals and its cure. It was pride, and passion.

I later said to Alex, a man who loves and takes pride in his work is a man we can trust. He agreed.

Warren sat us down on the sofa, placing five or six jewellery boxes each containing twenty of his designs before us. He watched us quietly, letting us ambivalently pick up this and that. I gravitated towards solitaires, watching him note my choices. Alex chose something more elaborate but I put it down. 'I don't have the personality for that. I'm a rather plain person,' I said apologetically to Warren, who smiled awkwardly. 'Whatever suits you.'

In the end, out of a hundred or more designs, we had five - three of which favoured above the others. We handed them to Warren, who wrote down serial numbers. Then he asked us for a price range and specifications for a diamond, which Alex named. We had rough sizes, colour and clarity of the diamond in mind, but weren't sure about how much it would reasonably cost.

'Leave it to me,' Warren said. He would source some diamonds, and we could call again in a week's time.

'Next lesson,' he said, 'will be about safe diamonds.' I cocked my head at him, not understanding, but he left it cryptic.

It was late by the time we'd finished. The office officially closed at 7pm, but we'd overstayed and it was now 9 o'clock and dark. I felt silly for not noticing the time, given that we'd arrived in the late afternoon while the sun was still up, apologised for keeping him, but he brushed it away.

'Hard honest work takes time,' he'd said. 'Now go and get some dinner.'

Alex and I hadn't eaten since the afternoon and our stomachs were growling. We thanked him, and said goodbye, looking forward to the next lesson.

Alex held the lift door open for me. I tripped again on the peeling carpet.

'What did you think?' he looking at me quizzically, once we were inside. I could tell he was in a good mood; his eyebrows almost dance cockily when he is. I didn't answer and shrugged, feeling that somewhere inside me the knot of worry loosen and dissipate.

The doors of the lift opened, and we both stepped out into the night, content, knowing full well that the ramen bar where we'd planned to have dinner had closed.

Raspberry Coke

I am holding a Raspberry Coke. In a plastic 600mL bottle.

There are six of us, trapped in this concrete prison. Grey slabs stained brown surround us ten floors high. Through the glass, we can see khaki figures guarding the doors.

We're not scared, because there's six of us (and six of them), and I'm holding a Raspberry Coke. They chase us down, up wheelchair slopes that maddeningly zigzag the complex. Their belts and buckles clang against the metal railings when they run. There are no corners, just neverending corridors and so for now, we're not scared.

Inside, the aged plaster smells like public urinal. Our feet, wading dreamlike in suspended reality, are soundless and weightless against the lino. Gradually, the corridor walls press in on us, Alice-In-Wonderland-like, as we fly through this museum of optical illusion. Each corner is tighter, each room smaller and smaller. Too small for six, and we start to feel scared.

There is one more wheelchair ramp. It slopes from the second-floor exit to the right, then back to the left, to a door on the ground floor directly below the first. On the far left, another exit leading to darkness. On the far right, the afternoon sun sparkles through a glass door leading outside to a leafy courtyard. We six squeeze tight and shimmy through the railing bars, and somersault to ground from the guardrail, parkouring to freedom - only to be faced with more khaki.

Four men enter through the glass door. Another six, guns - guns! - at the ready, skulk in through the ground floor exit. The gap closes as the khaki we have amassed during our escapade, numbering in the twenties, flank us. Lastly, breaking from the mass, their leader advances menacingly - wielding a polished baton, shiny and dark, that is much scarier than the guns.

We might be six, but now we're scared. Their leader is muscular and unforgiving. His square jaw is matted with prickly beard that is soft as cactus. His gold tooth winks at us in warning as he grins, but not warning enough as he swings his baton into the soft abdomen of one of us. There is an audible crack of ribs, and it is the first time today that I will hear bones break. Our friend crumples, winded and in that moment, we're separated, not feeling his pain and not wanting to. The static binding us disappears, the electron trails snap. We're not six but six ones, standing on his own, each man for himself.

The buzzing, of trapped electricity frantically fighting its way out, of sudden isolation, of the bubbles in my shaken Coke, causes confusion and panic. It isn't unfamiliar but it isn't pleasant. It is waking up to yourself. It is a state of persistent heightened alertness leading to anxiety, paranoia and eventual insanity. It is a depressingly desperate struggle. It's cyclic. It's annoying.

I watch the big guy swing his baton again, casually and randomly, crushing a mandible beyond repair.

I grab one of the armed guards. He looks young, prepubescent, with no pockmark scars marring his perfect sweat-drenched skin. He is thin, eerily so and almost weightless in my arms. He's gone limp like a rag doll. I hold his cocked gun to his head and back slowly towards the darkness.

The khaki herd start to follow but the big guy holds up his baton and they retreat. He walks towards me, oh so leisurely, waving his stick in a figure-8 in front of him. I continue backing away with my hostage, and he follows until the three of us are in shadow. His gold tooth twinkles in the dark so I know he's still smiling. I'm awkward and clumsy. Now, I can hear my own feet, scuffing the concrete, and my own heavy breathing, but paradoxically can't hear his silent footfalls. I stumble but don't fall, and pray that I won't trip again.

My back comes up against a wooden door.

Big Guy hasn't seen me yet. With my gun hand I fumble frantically for the handle, a round brass knob. It's slippery. Sounds seem to echo further in the dark and the lock is dodgy. It unsticks with some effort, rusted metal grinding harshly on rotted wood. It is then that I hear his sheer bulk coming towards me. The thumping of muscle on muscle. The thumping of his excited heart.

I scramble inside, dragging the hostage with my left arm, and slamming the door closed with both our body weights. I hear a thump and feel it reverberate through my body, but the wood is solid. I lock the door with my right, swing around with the gun and instantly shoot the boy in the head. Such a waste of a life, and I'm sorry.

The banging on the door won't stop, and the door won't hold. I am in a sad-looking office, with a full bookshelf to the right of the door and a desk and matching chair facing a thin, long window that provides little natural light. I judge the room to be on the first floor, but the view from the window proves me wrong. I'm three floors up, boxed in by a large corrugated metal fence two-and-a-half floors high. The fence forms a narrow alleyway that holds a dumpster, and piles and piles of old university textbooks.

I consider barricading the door with the desk, but it's too heavy, or the bookshelf, but it's full and so too heavy. The dead boy's brains are a now sticky star-shaped splatter on the carpet. Both were poor time-buying strategies. There is only one real option for escape.

The window slides open, but sticks a quarter of the way. The resultant rectangle is the size of a small dog kennel. I can squat on the ledge, the only way I can fit, and launch myself out.

I slam into the metal fence. I then rebound, onto the edge of the open dumpster, chest first, and my ribs snap inwards. I slide to the ground, face down, and hear the final crunching of bone. Wrist, radius, femur or skull, I don't know. I imagine a million tiny voices shrieking in pain. I see a birds' eye view of my own sprawled body, flat and limp like a rag doll.

From three stories up, I hear a window open.

Dearest ____ (you know who you are!)

Thank you for your thoughts! They were so honest that I could only do them justice by replying in kind. This is the first time I've put on my writing cap in a while, so please be forgiving.

Firstly, I'd like to apologise for interrupting your holiday with a selfish question. You were in California admiring Chateau Marmont, and I was in my new flat unpacking, knee-deep in storage boxes, lazily scrolling through Instagram and admiring your photos.

In the days leading up to what would be another year of medical school, dread and fear and hate grew in the pit of my stomach (which thanks to anatomy, I now know is not a real place - but how real it feels!). I wrestled with myself until I had gotten myself into a proverbial headlock, forced myself to get on the plane, and forced myself to be where I am now. I knew that this was not normal behaviour, but I think I've let it fester for so long that it's become something like commensal bacteria. It feels like an uncomfortable, itchy blanket. It is constant.

The reason I asked you, is because I have suspected for some time that I hate medicine and because of this, hate myself. The problem was that I couldn't be sure. Does everyone else feel this pressure, of wanting to throw in the towel every other day (hour, minute)? Does everyone else feel this inadequate? Does everyone else feel this unhappy? Is this normal?

To the last question I don't have an answer. I've asked friends: about waking up constantly fatigued after sleeping for 12 hours straight, about the stabs of loathing and disgust I feel out of nowhere towards the profession and some people in it, about medicine forcing me to question not only my competency but my identity - without being too dramatic. This is apparently normal; medicine is a high-stress course and career. But this line of questioning is like trying to take a hike in someone else's shoes, in that you can't really. Because they're not your shoes. I can't know if I feel what they feel. So, I am gathering more evidence.

I, too, never developed a burning passion for science. I just have a curiosity about most things. Interestingly, the list of what I've wanted to be throughout my life is so like yours: writer, journalist, psychologist, zoologist, lawyer. (I'm serious!) But unlike yours, a medical career was also very much among my many professional aspirations. Here are the reasons for, as you aptly put, my diversion into medicine:

Firstly, I adore people. Because I can't find as neat a metaphor as I would like, what I feel towards people is between, say, what a laboratory scientist feels towards his rats, and what a visitor to an art gallery feel about the exhibits. Amazement. Admiration. Curiosity. Occasionally, disdain. (It happens.) I couldn't imagine working in any field where I have less of an opportunity to observe them in their natural habitat and out of their natural habitat, with all their vulnerabilities and imperfections that make them paradoxically perfect and beautiful, than I do now.

Secondly, as much as I enjoyed mentally and emotionally stimulating work as a pharmacist, practically, career prospects did not look good. It promised no job security, irregular hours and peanuts for pay. For how much I enjoyed what I did, I would've gladly stomached the peanuts. But I thought I'd need a Plan B. That was medicine. I never saw it as a career shift; rather, it was an opportunity to grow another arm and a leg, so that I could be more of an asset to the patients who meant so much to me. Like you, I felt that this was my duty. If I had the option to contribute more to society, why wouldn't I? And like you, gaining admission into medical school wasn't a problem. It wouldn't have made sense to stress over a Plan B. In the coming years, I would point to this as the reason for my apathy.

I remember the first day of medical school: orientation. The modern Hippocratic Oath, displayed on a screen, and a stethoscope ceremony served as our initiation into the profession. They told us how noble we were, and how noble what we were doing was. I didn't feel particularly noble.

I watched as my first- and second-year peers trailed after doctors, reverent and starry-eyed. I felt nothing (or slightly sick, at best). I listened as my third-year friend was allowed to assist in a complicated abdominal surgery. A month later, I held the protractor in another such surgery as she did, and in the 3 hours I stood there, pulling the abdominal muscles apart, I still felt nothing. I excised a melanoma from a leathery cheek and stitched up his now-bleeding face. I felt nothing, no sense of achievement or enthusiasm, while everyone around me found new things to celebrate every day. I pretended, and exhausted myself pretending, to feel the same way. I was unfulfilled. I felt stifled. I felt tired every day. I began to question my own humanity.

I felt confused. It made me doubt who I was, what I liked and what I was only pretending to like. I have always been introspective but for the first time, I didn't know myself. I felt further and further away from achieving my goals of working closely with people, who were beginning more and more to look like a collection of symptoms and laboratory results. I felt no comradery with my fellow medical students, and even less with my doctors. In my misery, I found more and more reasons to hate the people I worked with. I'd never felt so abhorrent towards the very people I'd professed to care for. I think I was just looking for a cause.

Then one night, after I'd kept my game face all day, it finally slipped off. Third year was coming to an end; it would've been early October. The school had organised an award ceremony for the clinical teachers, and we'd all had some wine. I had even offered to present the awards, and gone shopping for the prizes myself the day before. Alex drove me home and I was feeling off. I'd asked to him if he was up for a drive to the beach (it's about 15 minutes away), and we'd sat in the car, in the dark, listening to waves that I couldn't even see with the headlights off while I struggled with my feelings and how to articulate them. I couldn't get the words out, so we drove back. Some students had kicked on partying at the student accommodation and were gathered around the communal living area with bottles of spirits and a deck of cards, and I joined in, hoping to shake it off. But three or four drinks later found me sitting outside in the driveway, crying without knowing why. People had started going home. Alex ushered me out of the way of outbound cars, and onto a mattress where I sat, docile, for some time. Then I told him that I wanted to suicide. It came out choked; I was so ashamed, and when he dismissed it and me for having silly thoughts, I begged. Begged him to let me do it, begged until I fell asleep from exhaustion. Then I woke up the next morning and went back to work.

Nothing like that has happened since, but even so, summer holidays could not have come sooner. I threw the itchy blanket off. For months, I allowed myself to forget about it. I allowed myself to eat generously, grow fat, surround myself with family, be content. But as New Years' crept up and then passed me by, I couldn't stop thinking about unpacking that blanket, and now I'm wearing it again.

It's still all very unclear to me. I would be kidding myself if I didn't think medicine was going to be hard. And I wasn't, and medicine has been fraught with challenges as I'd expected, and I think I approached it realistically. But this awful feeling - is this to be expected? Or is this a sign that I've made a mistake?

I am sure you weren't expecting a response like this, and I would not be offended if you didn't read it - it's all over the place! I think, like you, this has forced me to self-analyse and be honest with myself. It has been therapeutic. So even if nothing changes, thank you for your help.

I'll update you with any progress, and here's hoping that you'll feel better soon.