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

How long have they all been here? Most of them are older, from early thirties plus. And how long will I be here? Eighteen months of psychiatric evaluation. Should I really just do what I’m told? Will it make things easier? My head pounded harder but I let the thoughts keep coming and tried to hang on to their threads.

Jesus, what is this medication? Should I just keep taking it anyway? Aw, fuck it! We’re all slaves in this world anyway so what difference does it make, being in here to outside? There’s always someone pushing you around, forcing you to do things. Forcing you against your will to follow orders. What difference does it make if it’s a teacher, politician, your dad or a nurse? The easiest thing to do is to just give in. Some people even say that happiness comes from just accepting your situation and dealing with it.

No! That’s a cop-out! You have two choices…what choices?..Well, you can either try to get the hell out of here and get as far away from this place as possible… Or you can stay and end up like those zombies in front of the TV. I can phone Mack? No, it’s too soon. What can she do anyway? You’re here by law, of your own doing. They’ve got as much chance of getting out of Guantanamo than you do of getting out of here. You could get a lawyer? But I don’t have a penny to my name! The judge made his decision, they’re not gonna flip it round now.

But there has to be something! No, there isn’t. You don’t really have anything, do you? No relatives. No loved ones. No possessions. Nothing! The only thing you really own is your mind and your soul. If they take that then you have nothing. If you can’t think, if you can’t follow your own thoughts and live independently, doing what you think it is right, then you’re not free. And from one morning here you know they don’t want people living independently.

My torso bobbed on the edge of the bed. The tide of blissful numbness washed in ever closer. But the thoughts kept coming and I kept reaching out for the rope and getting pulled away. Quotations from people I had read or heard in the past filtered in as I tried to make sense of it all. Just then a warm wave washed through my body and I fell back into the mattress. I turned on my side. Acid and vomit surged my throat and were swept back by a gulp of saliva. Hold on, captain! I cried in my head, but humour was hopelessly out of place. This was serious. What am I going to do? I wondered. And why am I suffering like this? All my life since the age of ten I’ve had to suffer. What did I ever do to anyone? A shitty dad and a fucked-up home life. Never had any friends. Nobody ever knew or understood me. Then I try to sort it all out and fix it once and for all, and I end up in here! It’s just one hell to the next! Why does life, why does my life have to be so full of shit and suffering?

God is supposed to be loving and forgiving! Well, I prayed and prayed when I was younger, and it never stopped! It just went on and on. Why? Fucking WHY?

I felt the tears running down my face. Running cold down my nose and mixing with snot and running the saltiness into my mouth.

Then something I’d read in the bible a few years before punched into my head. Jesus said “Cherish not the flock of sheep that follow the crowd, cherish more than any other the one that runs away, and goes off course.” Or something like that. And he said that those that suffer are the chosen ones. But that doesn’t apply to me, does it? Does it apply to me because I am suffering? Am I meant to learn from this in some way? Cherish not the flock of sheep that follow the crowd. Cherish more than any other the one that runs away. What is that supposed to mean?

I thought about it. What is the world if it’s full of people following orders and not listening to their own minds and conscience? What are people who don’t follow their own feelings-the one thing that makes them human? Robots, that’s what we become. Pointless, unloving, unfeeling robots that can only follow a given set of instructions and obey them mechanically. The nurses here don’t seem to be very human. They don’t seem to care about us. They don’t show love or honesty or conscience. They don’t do what is right. Jesus, you’re not giving them much of a chance, you’ve hardly been in here a day! Yeah, so what, I know that they don’t. They’re just following their job duties; why else would they act like that? And my dad! After every time he did what he did, he would apologise and say sorry, and he did look sorry, but then he did it again. Was he weak because he couldn’t just do the right thing and follow his conscience?

I twisted and turned. Another round of rotten phlegm tickled my throat. I was sure I was gonna throw up, but nothing came out.

Jesus always talked about the suffering and the downtrodden and the runaway sheep. Are they maybe the ones who will help lead the human race to elevate themselves? All the best poets and writers and revolutionaries, and people, honest people, have to suffer in one way or another. No. That’s not it. I don’t fucking know! All I know is I’m stupid as fuck and know nothing. I’m rambling and make no sense. But you know you can’t blame it on the drugs, you know you’ve always been fucking stupid.

I retched, trying to get something out, but I only spat saliva. Back in this situation again! Here. The bathroom yesterday. The bedroom on-suite every night and