Day One - The toilet brushes have short handles

The transport ship had arrived late, as if to delay the inevitable. Already I had to re-acquaint myself with the sounds and smells of what was so familiar and yet was what I had fled. The transit guards seemed friendly enough, but greeted me with "How are you?" instead of "hello", as if they expected my condition to change.

The 15-minute journey into the city was more crowded than I'd remembered, with the locals still scrutinising the train, unsure what to make of it. They were unsure where to sit or what to do – couples clutched hands nervously and looked out on the veld – as though the very existence of the service meant the words 'public' and 'transport' could be used together in the same sentence. The presence of armed guards on board suggested the sentence in question was like mine: it promised tough times ahead.

I wore sunglasses for the first time in months. The glare here is more than just sun, it's a high-altitude, science-fiction third-act, blazing light that scores the retinas. Nowhere to hide here.

I was picked up by the wardens and brought to the first internment camp. My room was as I remembered, only this time, weary from travel, I had to clean it before being able to sleep there. I went one further - reorganising the space, throwing away bags and bags of items and cleaning caked dust off every surface.

Some of the discarded items included: an installation disc for Microsoft Publisher 1998, a receipt from a restaurant meal eaten in 2003, blank diaries from 2002, 2003, 2006 and 2008, a green plastic shoestand (broken), seven tomato crates, several floppy discs, dozens of non-working pens, random newspaper cuttings, broken audio cassette boxes, plastic stationery organisers, several hole punchers (broken), a pink 1980s calculator (sadly also broken)... the list goes on.

To wit: images from before and after said cleanup of cell.

A long sleep followed, disturbed only by ghostly dreams and the perpetual burring of the neurotic dogs outside. One has large silver ticks that have burrowed into its back, causing it discomfort and the need for constant nibbling, but at least giving it something to do.

Dinner was at a restaurant in Linden. We were the only guests to arrive and the only guests to leave. Kwaito music blared out seconds before and after our departure. We were told, unsurprisingly, that we "must come again", as though it were an order.

A phone call with the Fink enlivened spirits, as across the waters two soft ferret toys found themselves in conjunction, perhaps in the 69 position. The resolve remains strong to get through the quarantine, even with only 2.5% of it completed. While running a bath before bedtime I noticed the toilet needed a bit of brushing from a previous occupant. And that the toilet brush had a small handle, which meant that as I cleaned the bowl my hand disappeared below the edge of the toilet rim.

This meant – perhaps – that in order to flush things out, to clean things up, I must wade deeply into the problem. As apt a symbol of my current state of mind as I could hope to find, sanitation level notwithstanding.

Now wash your hands.