I’m awake but it’s dark. The same tarry black as my empty sleep.

What do you dream about with when all your memories have gone?

The electricity is off again.

‘Can you fix it?’ I asked last time it happened, but I was told I should be more understanding, more grateful.

I feel my way to the tap, twisting it so it spews a trickle of water into my glass. Last week it came out brown and gritty, so I got bottled water again, though not enough. ‘To tide you over,’ I was told, which reminded me of something, somewhere. Fresh and free.

I try to make a note of every day that passes and wind my watch, but sometimes I forget. I could be out of kilter with the rest of the world by days or even months or years. I lost a whole season once. But I’m set straight with a smile, or I get a flower to show me it’s summer, and one time I was taken out to see the snow. I’m thirty-three years old and today is the twelfth of February 2017.

Or maybe it’s August and I’m only thirteen.

I sit in the chair, waiting. When the power has been off before, the food in the fridge went bad. I’ve paid the price of slimy ham and lumpy milk once too often. Hospitals aren’t for people like me, I’m told.

Later, I wake with a jolt. I must have dozed off. There’s a horrid smell. Everything stinks in here anyway, but this is worse. The walls stink. The floor stinks. The furniture stinks and I stink. It’s a soup of mould and sweet yeast and sad, exhaled breath. But this time there’s something else in the mix – a dog, wet and salty from the sea. Just your mind playing tricks and best forgotten, I’m told, when I complain that people keep visiting, talking to me.

Suddenly, the light comes back on. I screw up my eyes, opening them gradually as the glare from the bulb burns through my lids. There’s an image scorched onto my eyes, which doesn’t go away even when I blink – me on a long stretch of beach with a cobalt-blue sky and a bright umbrella straining in the breeze. Frothy green waves rush up the sand and there’s a man walking his dog. It runs up and licks me. This memory tastes as delicious as ice cream, but when the wind whips up I’m all alone again, screaming, begging not to die.

Then I run at the wall. There’s hardly any space in here, yet I manage a good speed, hurling myself against it. Usually, I just get a bruise, but sometimes I go nice and dizzy. Once, I prised off a couple of the wooden panels to see what was underneath, but all I found was yellow padded stuff that made me sneeze. It helps pass the time.

I put on a film. I’ve got loads. I’ve seen them all a thousand times and know all the words off by heart. It’s summertime in this movie, which is why I like it. I imagine my room to be hot and bright, the sun beating down. My head throbs and so I pretend I’m wearing a hat. I slip on some sunglasses while my skin scorches, peeling and bubbling from the heat. Then, much later, a pair of gentle hands rubs cool cream on my shoulders.

‘You’ve caught the sun, little one,’ she says. I giggle up at her, crinkling my nose, imagining myself running about with my hands cupped, ready to catch the sun as it falls from the sky. Her voice is sweet, and she smells of roses. I don’t know who she is.

Suddenly, a pain grips my side. No food for three days now. Then, as if my thoughts have sent out an emergency signal, the familiar clattering and clanking sound heralds what I hope will be a glorious feast. I get down on all fours and crouch behind the chair, sucking on my fingers, chewing and eating the peeling skin, waiting. When the door opens, a rush of cool, fresh air sweeps in.

‘Hello,’ I whisper. My voice is croaky.

The door locks again and the chair is shoved aside.

‘What are you doing down there?’ The face looms like a big pale moon – doughy and troughed. I can smell the outside.

‘Hiding,’ I giggle. ‘What did you bring me? I’m starving.’

‘Stew.’ Two bags of food are unloaded onto the little table. I’ve had lots of tables. I smashed all the others. The stew is in a plastic bag and feels cold and sloppy. There’s a huge bag of crisps and I pull it open immediately, shoving my face inside like a horse. They’re delicious. The best crisps ever!

‘Drink this orange juice,’ I’m told, so I do. Over the rim of the glass I see ham and bread and more margarine being put on my table. I’m given some baked beans and a tin of frankfurters too, plus there’s a can of mixed vegetables and some real potatoes still with the earth stuck in their eyes.

Then a vitamin pot is rattled under my nose. ‘Make sure you take these.’

Later, after I’m alone again and my belly is cramping around the crisps, I decide to watch another film. I know it inside out and back to front, but it always makes me feel better. A woman gets into her car, strapping her two little children in the back. She drives off down a lonely road and the music gets loud and scary. At the junction, when she stops, a bad man forces his way into the car.

‘You should have stayed inside! You should have stayed inside!’ I scream out, like I’ve been taught. I tear at my hair, throwing my shoe at the screen.

Doesn’t she know how dangerous it is out there? Why doesn’t she ever listen to me?

I cover my eyes, and when I peek again, the children are dead and the man is on top of the woman. That’s when I count my lucky stars that I’m locked up safe in here.