"There are no markers with which I can measure."

Picked up this book when I went to bed. Excerpt below conveys an interesting example of the durational. 

"I was marched back to the back of the building where chains were attached to my ankles. I was then taken to another cell not far away. I was horrified to see that the cell I was about to enter had no light in it at all, just a door and four walls. When I peered inside, I saw that there was a metal ring attached to the wall. The guards hustled me in and proceeded to attach one of the chains on my leg to this ring. They had only left me a few inches of slack and I pointed this out to them, stupidly thinking that they had made a mistake. The guards laughed and continued, leaving the cell when they had done. The door slammed shut and everything was black.

I couldn't move any more than a few inches, my leg married to the wall in this way. There was no bed in this room, just concrete floor. I tried to lie down but my leg was in the wrong position for me to do so. I could only sit against the wall in a half-squatting position. I could think of nothing but the shape of my body and the position I was in. I could see nothing. This was imprisonment at its most absolute.

The difficulty in telling this story - my whole story, in fact -  is that there is no way for me to communicate duration of time to you. It may have taken a minute for you to have read of my position in this punishment cell, but I was in this position for a whole month. How do I convey this notion to you? There are no markers with which I can measure. The only way for you to come close to experiencing this is to read the previous paragraph, over and over, every minute of everyday, for a whole month. But nobody could do that without going mad with frustration."

page 148

The Damage Done - Twelve Years of Hell in a Bangkok Prison. Warren Fellows. 1997