[ WP ] How many hours had it been ? No way to tell . Beneath those halogen bulbs it was always half-past anytime .

Vomit was everywhere, and the smell was making his head spin. He was not wearing his clothes, he was not in his home, and everywhere there was a painfully bright light. It was extremely disorienting. 
 
 Some unknown length of time ago, Wasif had been awakened by somebody slapping him in the face. They had asked him a lot of questions and hit him when he answered them, but eventually they had left. He had been brought here even longer ago, but he did n't know how much longer - the constant even light made it impossible to tell. He was pretty sure the light was from halogens, but he could n't tell because he could n't move his head. 
 
 Wasif tried to look up now and found he could not. There was a board directly above his head, fastened to the wall like he was, that prevented him from straightening his neck. The pain was dull for now, but it could be unbearable. 
 
 The worst part was that Wasif was n't sure why this was happening. He could clearly remember everything up to his capture - maybe. this place was not kind to his mind. 
 
 He had probably been in the street when he had heard the sirens go off, a keening sound like the wailing of a giant. He had seen smoke filling the sky. He had run. 
 
 Wasif remembered being a part of the crowd that surged against the police wall as they tried to control the city. Wasif remembered being crushed against the scratched riot shields. He could still smell the sweat and powdered brick, the fear and the chaos. The crowd had been screaming, a pounding sound that had brought out the panic in him. 
 
 He had been in that first line that fell under the blows of black batons when the police panicked, too. 
 
 He had been knocked out there and taken to a cell. He had lain there and thought he would be okay, that everything would end. Wasif had been left there in the crowded concrete cell as more and more people were brought in, and less and less food delivered. He remembered the babbling waves of his native Arabic that had echoed off the closed-in walls. He remembered waking up with the Iraqi sun burning his skin everyday. 
 
 He sneezed. The back of his head smacked against the board. The sudden flare of pain served as a trigger, and he screamed. His vision seemed to white out and give way to memory, memory of the smell of humanity in close quarters, of tension and nervous panic and even violence as he was slowly forgotten in the cell, and one day men in a different uniform had walked in and spoken with the guards and they had pointed at various people and- 
 
 Wasif screamed and screamed and then cut it off all at once. Just like that, he was dry. He had broken the first rule of surviving in this timeless white plane of existence - draw no attention. 
 
 He could already hear the march of boots, the clink of chains and rope, the slosh of water - the only constant. No, that was wrong: That, and the lights. 
 
 Always light.
