Esther-Ruth hadn't heard anyone coming up behind her. Actually, she had barely felt the nudge of the fully charged cattle-prod being pressed into her side, just on the kidney region. It was like she just felt 'something' and even before her brain had processed that, even before she could turn to see what the source of the pressing into her kidney was, she felt a massive, paralysing jolt of electric course right through her. Of course she didn't have time to process that she was receiving an electric shock of several thousand volts. She will have just been aware of the surge and the intense tightening of every single muscle in her body. She may have been aware that her eyes were bulging to the point of 'popping'. Or she may not have been aware. She will have been aware, super-aware really of the things that were happening around her. But she will not have been able to do anything about it. The cattle-prod was held tight into her rib cage, pressed through the sari, and that spot expertly found by the handler of the prod and held there. Just there so that the thousands upon thousands of volts could do their work. And those volts did their work. They did their work to devastating effect.

Esther-Ruth would have been very conscious of trying to scream out, but nothing, at least no sound coming out of her mouth just the bubbles. Bubbles of saliva that slightly steamed because of the electric surge through her. She may have been aware of her full lipped mouth opening and closing like she was saying something without the sounds coming out. But it’s even unclear if she would have been aware of that. At this precise time in the proceedings her body and mind were trying their best to cope with two levels of intense shock. First, the electric shock of such a magnitude that as she was being lowered to the grounds, she was losing control of the contents of her bladder. Then the shock of the abduction. Or the shock of not knowing what the hell was going on. Her mind would have been in the advanced stages of melt-down. Although, she wouldn't have realised her mind was in melt-down. And yet, despite the shock, the two levels of shock, everything was lucidly clear in her mind. She could see everything in crystal clear clarity. Everything clear and emphasised. Super-enhanced.

She will have been aware of being lowered to the ground by a pair of strong hands that had slipped under her arms from underneath her and she will have been aware that she had no feeling or no movement in her limbs at all. Total paralysis. She will have been more than totally aware of the hot steaming liquid gushing from her bladder and down the insides of her thighs. Some of it soaking into the sari, some running down the length of her legs as she was lowered. She will have seen again in crystal clear clarity, the woman standing in front of her as she was lowered. An Indian woman yet in western dress.