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

silence of the ward, my mind flashed relentlessly through all the events of that first day. The patients, their haunted faces. Nina. Kev and his leering eyes. Sandy, Dr Dickson, Sanders. I kept seeing that door to my room bursting open, the three of them coming in, her with her needle. To have so little privacy. So little option. But what can I do? I considered. I could get my phone call and call Mack? But what can I say that she can act on? And anyway, someone will be right by the phone.

The visions kept sparking in and out of my consciousness. Nina’s hair shedding as she cried in the group therapy room, the light from the window lighting her up from behind. Sanders desperation for me to listen that morning, her regret later that day.

You are in the care of the state for the indefinite future.

Eighteen months of psychiatric evaluation.

I rolled my covers around me till it formed a cocoon, like I used to do when I was little, and I clasped my hands together and prayed. There was no light apart from the prism from the door panel.

I closed my eyes tighter…

I was half-way through, and had tears in my eyes as I poured out my emotions, when a voice behind my head distracted me.

“OI GOD! IS THAT YOU DOWN THERE?”

I looked at the wall. It must have been paper-thin.

“YEAH, I HEAR YOU, GOD,” a girl’s voice shouted, “THEY’RE ALL A BUNCH OF MOTHERFUCKERS. HOW DID YOU GET DOWN THERE?”…

“YOU SWAM! HA-HA!...

Hey God,…when you gonna bust me outta here? ...

What? You’re getting ready? Well, hurry up then!”

There was heavy banging. Then I heard another voice-Sanders. “Claire, get away from that toilet, please. You’ve been told.”

“Okay. Okay. I’m going to bed.”

There was a delay…

 I heard the door shut. ..

“Sh, I’ll be quiet, God. They can’t hear me now. Listen, can you hurry up and bust me out, please? I’m so bored.”

It all went quiet again.

I finished my prayer, and at long last felt my eyelids pulling shut. I was just about to drift off when-

“HA-HA-HA! YOU’RE JOKING? HA-HA-HA.” -hysterical laughter rang through the wall.

Chapter 15

I watched from my pillow as the dull daylight trickled in past the bars and slowly brightened the walls. The three knocks eventually came, but I hung in there a while longer. The many doors clicked open and slammed shut, and Sanders heels clattered, and Liz’s cockney voice bellowed out and got trapped in the confines of the corridor. Then the doors slammed less frequently. Sanders heels went, and eventually Liz shut up too, as everything went quiet.

I wondered what the consequences were of not getting up. Dragged out anyway? Another injection? I gave up and rolled out of the bedsheets and slowly put on the clothes that were on the floor, and I wandered to the door and stepped out. I checked through Claire’s door panel. What sort of a person was talking to God down the toilet? But her room was empty.

I counted down the other doors as I went by. The corridor seemed narrower than it had before, seemed to stretch back for miles along its barred, dim windows till it eventually reached the wall that led into the common room. I heard nothing but the ringing in my ears. I got past the fifth door and the sixth, about a quarter of the way, and gazing down the aisle I guessed twenty-two. But then something made my senses prick up. The air changed, and the cold listlessness was breeched, by a noise. Then another. As I got closer the energy only increased. It sounded like the chants of a football fan.

 “WHO ARE YA? WHO ARE YA?”

The racket got louder and louder and I reached the wall and turned inside to see Larry- the guy who had tried to stick up for me before- jumping around the room. His long, monstrous arms stretched up, bringing his six feet four up to about seven feet.

“Larry! Shut it! Sit down and eat your breakfast!” Kev shouted from the trolley, his blue eyes blazing. Sanders, Liz and Dale were at his side, but left him to it.

Larry took no notice. Engrossed like a child he jumped up on his right leg and punched the air, and punched it again, “WHO ARE YA? WHO ARE YA?” I didn’t want to take my eyes off him, but I quickly looked away to the patients laughing, to Sandy in his usual seat. Nina wasn’t there.

“Larry!” Kev thundered again. Sanders stood nervously beside, looking lost. But then she straightened up, like a meerkat scouting for danger, and turned to Kev and said something.

“COME ON MILL-WALL! COME ON MILL-WALL!” Larry had both arms up now, blocking my view of the news on TV. Everyone in the room was watching him. Kev stormed round the serving table and swaggered fiercely across, his face cocky, wary and embracing the challenge all at once, a smirk of anticipation playing on his lips. He lifted his clenched fists. Larry saw him coming, but just kept throwing his arms in the air. Kev circled him like a hoodlum. “DALE!” he commanded.

Dale’s depressed face reluctantly stepped out to join him. He took the left side and Kev went to Larry’s right as he jumped away from the TV. The two of them edged forwards, synchronized, just like they had done to me in my room. Kev drew close and threw an arm out, but Larry leapt back, surprisingly nimbly on one of those massive legs. He laughed like an infant. The two men only encouraged him. His big, broad face widened in a child’s grin, “MILL-WALL! MIILLWALL!” he bounced, batting away Kev’s arm with a gleeful shriek. Dale stayed back, Kev lunged in again, swept his arm up at the man a foot taller and tried to grab