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

He stared at me, then burst out laughing. His eyes darted around the room. He bounced his bum on the seat. I wondered if he had ADHD.

“Why are you in here?” I asked.

His fleeting eyes returned. He smiled childishly, “If I knew I would tell you, mate. But I’ve been diagnosed bipolar.” He placed special emphasis on the word diagnosed.

“You don’t think you have it then?”

“Have it? No. No more than anyone else.” His fingers drummed the table.  “What about you?”

I hadn’t thought of a lie to tell yet, which seemed stupid of me…

“Clinical depression.” I said.

He laughed again, a hard, full-belly laugh you could hear even above the TV.  “As opposed to imaginable depression?” he smiled. “What you on?”

“Benzodiazepine.”

“For depression?”

I shrugged my shoulders.

He nodded then shook his head in the same movement. “Ooh. Those things will really take the edge off.”

“Really?”

“Nah, they’re not that bad. Some of the stuff they try to give me would knock out a horse. Och, it’s alright,” he said. He lowered his voice, “They’re all drugged up to the eyeballs. They won’t say anything, eh Bill?” He turned to his right and gave his neighbour a light punch in the shoulder. Spittle fell from Bill’s mouth and he glared at Harry in annoyance for a few seconds, then looked back at his dinner.

“Have you had the spiel yet?” Harry asked. “That you’ve got low serotonin levels and a chemical imbalance. Just like some people get SAD in the winter because the lack of sunlight makes them depressed. Have you ever heard of anybody who doesn’t get depressed in seventeen hours of darkness a day?”

I tried to change the subject, “So you’ve been in solitary the last few days?”

“Uh huh.” He crammed the other half of the toast into his mouth.

“Why?” He struggled to chew it all and I waited for him to finish, “What were you gonna say exactly?”

“I was just gonna tell the inspector what they treat us like. And that this place is stuck in the nineteenth century. That we can’t use the phone. That there’s no books. That we are always locked up bored out of our minds. That it’s not a proper rehabilitation institution, and it’s doing more harm than good.”

I glanced back, Sanders was now talking to Kev and Liz. Kev was eyeing her like he wanted her to be his next conquest.

I looked at Harry. I lowered my voice, “Well, just to tell you, it would have been pointless saying anything anyway.”

His smile diminished. His eyebrows narrowed in confusion.  “What? What do you mean?”

“I’ll tell you later.” I said.

His second slice of buttered toast was the last thing on his plate. He mopped up the leftover bean sauce with it and swallowed it down.

He straightened up in his seat. “Do you want to go to the quiet room?” he asked.

“Okay.” I said, “C’mon then.”

Chapter 21

W e put away our trays and headed down the corridor, past Sanders office, the nurses’ station and the toilets, and into the quiet room, and turned on the light. The quiet room was only called the quiet room because it was eight rooms down from the noise of the common room, and it had nothing in it but a few plastic chairs and two large barred windows. It wasn’t far up the corridor from my room, and from the windows you could see the same disused building opposite the road. I’d never seen anyone else in there, and we were the only ones there now.

I picked up one of the chairs and carried it over to the window in the corner and Harry did the same. “What did you mean by that?” he asked.

I debated for a second whether to tell him or not, but didn’t see what difference it would make. “I saw Sanders and the inspector together. Fucking.”

His eyes widened. “Where?”

“Upstairs, just after art therapy. I was on my way back from the library.”

He glanced at the door and back at me. All his former abundant energy had manifested into nervousness, “Are you sure it was her?”

I nodded. “Positive.”

“Fuck!” He looked out the window. He shook his head, “I can’t fucking believe it.”

“What?”

“There was no way this place was going to pass any inspection. There’s just no way.” He kept shaking his head, wide-eyed, “She’s fucked em’ to keep em’ quiet.”

Something told me that Harry was alright. I thought I could trust him. Maybe I was just desperate to confide in someone.

“Is there not any other way you can get the word out?” I said.

“No. I’ve tried. Even when we get visits downstairs, they make sure that we are monitored. One guy tried to tell his aunt what it’s like, they put him in ward eight. Others have probably mentioned something too, but who would actually believe them? Most of their families don’t even listen to them.”

“Wait a minute,” I said. “What did you say about ward eight?”

“Oh, that’s the worst ward, for all the real crazy folks. That’s where they put me for solitary, out of the way. It’s the next ward along the corridor at the other side of the building, if you keep going past the therapy rooms. That’s where all the most violent patients are. This ward is nothing, and they’re all out of their faces anyway, but on ward eight even forty grams of lithium doesn’t calm some of them.”

He looked up through the window at the stars shining brightly. A moment's quiet passed. A shriek of laughter rang out from down the hall and one of the patients went skipping past our door. She didn’t look in.

“I’m worried about Kev.” I confessed. “What’s the deal with him?”

“Kev?” Harry had gone very quiet and was staring morosely at