Acid Rain by R.D Rhodes (ebook reader txt) 📕

I was incredulous. “This is stupid, this-”

“Just answer the question please.”

“but there’s-”

“Just answer the question please.” He straightened up across the table and leaned in on me.

“Yes, I do have trouble motivating myself sometimes, but I-

He nodded his head. Triumph shone in his eyes.

“Right. Well from looking at your case it seems pretty clear to me that I was justified in prescribing you benzodiazepine. It’s just an anti-anxiety and ten milligrams is a low dose, if you react well to it then we will see what happens. Until then, you are in the care of the state and our responsibility for the indefinite future.” He rattled on in a low bored monotone, as if he had already uttered those same words a thousand times that same day. “I suggest you start taking them immediately. I will check on your progress next week. NURSE.”

Sanders clicked open the door and looked in.

“That will be all. Same as prescribed, thank you.”

His stony eyes followed me as I pushed out my chair and left the room. Sanders nodded respectfully and softly shut the door.

Chapter 10

“You happy now?” Sanders chided as we headed back along the hall, Kev leading five yards in front.

I peered into the glass panels on the doors to our right, but all the rooms seemed empty. “That guy’s an arrogant bastard.” I said. “I’m still not taking them. You can’t force me to.”

“But we’re just trying to help.” She sighed, exasperated, but her annoyance wasn’t as intense as it was before. “Can you not just go along with it for now,” she said in a softer tone, “and if you don’t react to it well, or they just aren’t right for you, then we can see about something else?”

Kev kept ahead of us, but the way his neck was set I could tell he was listening to every word.

“But I don’t need anything just now.” I replied, as calmly as I could. “What side-effects do they have? Can you not see my point?”

“They don’t have any side effects!” her voice filled the corridor. “Look, they’ve been trialed and used all throughout the world for the last fifteen years. I think us experts, and especially someone of Doctor Dickson’s esteem, know what we are doing. They are just a very mild mood stabilizer, and the dose you’re on, it really won’t do any harm. You just need to trust us, calm yourself down and stop worrying. You’re going to make life hell for yourself here…..Have you always been this anxious?”

Kev turned down the stairs. We followed.

“I’m sorry.” I said firmly. “I can’t. At least give me a few weeks and I’ll see if I change my mind.”

But she never responded. Her face remained motionless, and unreadable, as she stared at the ground. We reached the first floor and Kev again took his place at the top of the stairway while Sanders clicked open the lock.

“Breakfast is finished.” she stated bluntly. “You get two hours of leisure time till group session.”

There was silence in my room. I’d just had a shower- with Liz standing guard right outside the cubicle- and I felt cleaner, but in almost all other ways I could feel myself coming apart. I pushed my face deeper into the pillow and tried to unburden myself of the darkness seeping into me. But it was impossible. Peace was impossible.

An image of Robert’s slavering mouth shot into my head, followed by the deadened looks from the men at the table, then the crowd in front of the TV. Kev’s leering eyes staring me up and down, Doctor Dickson speaking to me like shit. Sanders anger at me refusing the medication. The stocky man at the end of the hall, “Larry, back to your room.”

I had screamed for help and no-one had come.

What kind of place am I in?

They all turned a blind eye and did nothing.

But there was a more immediate concern. I sat bolt upright and shot my eyes to the door. “Same as prescribed,” he’d said. So the nurses will come back for me? But they can’t force me to take it, surely? Oh God, what have I got into?

I propped up my pillow and clasped my hands behind my head, staring up at the bare white ceiling and at the four white walls, trying to think. Without warning my heart began to beat fast in my chest. I started to struggle for breath. I tried inhaling deeply, but it only seemed to make it worse. The walls were drawing inwards and closing in on me, all of a sudden they didn’t even seem real, they were four-dimensional. It didn’t seem that anything was real. I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to block everything out but the pain in my chest wouldn’t go away. I gasped for breath. I leapt off the bed and paced the floor. I was panicking, but I had nowhere to go. I didn’t know what to do. I ran to the window, drew back my hand and punched the glass as hard as I could, but my fist just bounced back off it. It was solid. Impenetrable, and beyond its panels, rooted in the square structure of the stone, the black iron bars looked even tougher.

I stood at the window. “Compose yourself. Think. Think and breathe,” I told myself. I gazed beyond the bars at the fog outside and forced myself to concentrate on it. In the late morning light, I could make out the surroundings better than I could earlier. Two floors below my window I saw the derelict road that separated my building from the one across, and ran the length of ward four- a single track road with the white lines faded, and sprouting weeds from the cracks in the asphalt- I stared intently and did all