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

the carpet. “He’s not so bad. I’ve heard rumours but,- Why? What has he done?”

“Nothing, yet. Just..some things he’s said to me, and he seems, kind of like a sadist. He hasn’t ever hurt a patient here?”

Harry shook his head. “Not that I’ve seen, apart from the usual restriction violence. There was a rumour he, um, touched a girl last year. One of the patients said something, one of the girls. But she’s gone now, and she was prone to making up lies and exaggerating a lot. She also said her mum was Mother Theresa.” He looked at me. “I think he’s just a bully to be honest, and sex-mad. He reminds me of the bad stories the media used to put out about footballers or something. But no, I wouldn’t worry.”

It reassured me a little. “And should I be worried about Benzodiazepine?”

“Why?” Somewhat of a smile came back, “You’re not taking them anyway!”

That was true. I smirked. “Do they ever let us get out on the grounds? On my first day Sanders said we had to earn privileges.”

“Ha!” His lips curled into the same rueful smile he’d had when Kev was teasing him, “Not likely. I’ve been outside twice in the past six months, and both those times were down at the smoking area.” He turned away, looking back out the window as he massaged his temples with his fingers. His knees were bouncing up and down.

“So when will the next inspection be?”

“Not till next year now. That was the first one in over a year. Only the second since I’ve been here.”

“How long you been here?”

“Year and a half.”

I couldn’t see me lasting a year and a half.

“So... what do you think so far?” he said. “How are you feeling?”

“Well, they pinned me down and drugged me the other day, is that normal here?”

“Oh yeah,” he nodded, “Any backchat, or raucous behavior and that’s you- injection or time-out in your room. It wasn’t this bad last year, but it’s gotten a lot worse. The staff all got cut and some walked away, and they weren’t replaced. The ones they have left either aren’t up to the job or are too pushed for time to do anything. Last year there was fourteen or something, I think there’s only eight full-time now.”

“Yeah, I overheard the nurses saying something like that.”

“So.. apart from that, how are you finding everyone? What do you think of the patients?”

“Well,” I said, “I’ve not really spoken to anyone. They all seem off their faces.”

He nodded. “It’s true. It’s their only way of keeping control.”

“And most of the patients seem okay. Sandy’s alright. Nina worries me though.”

Harry looked as if it was something he had given a lot of thought about already. “Yeah, she’s been fucked up pretty bad. Do you know what happened?”

“No…I can guess.”

He shook his head- he was always nodding or shaking his head. “Fucking mankind!” he grimaced. “Do you want to know?”

I didn’t. I just knew it was sick.

His black eyes noticed my reservations and went on, “Most of the people here have been fucked up in some way or another. At least ninety percent of the time it’s family or social problems. Fucked up homes, shitty parents, shitty upbringings, shitty role models, ridiculous social expectations to live up to. Don’t get me wrong, some are genuinely ill, some probably need the medication, but most of it is due to society. Apart from the fact it’s practically impossible not to go crazy in all this shit, they start some of these people on downers and hard drugs when they are five. It’s crazy. Instead of helping kids, spending time with them, loving them, harnessing them, it’s just easier to get them all on drugs. If a kid’s got ADHD they have to drug him, or her, to go to their society’s school. But they should be helped around that, maybe it’s the school’s fault for not being stimulating enough, for being so fucking boring. Never mind the cunts in here, half the country’s on anti-depressants. I don’t know. R.D Laing said that all forms of transcendence are crushed by society, and I think he’s got a point there.”

“What? So you think some of these people are, what, geniuses and poets?”

“No, no, no, but most people in here, and outside, generally don’t have the option to think of anything else, abstract thought is just not encouraged. Thinking for yourself, it’s just not acceptable.” He stood up and paced across the room with his hands in his tracksuit pockets. If you could think of how a stereotype chav would dress, that was him. He got to the wall and walked back. “But, yeah, I think he, R.D Laing, kind of believed that some of these people were prophets or shamans or had some psychic power or extrasensory perception or something, and do you know what, I think some of them do. Course it’s always about how you can relate it to your own experience, and if it makes sense to you from what you have encountered yourself. And I’ve seen things once or twice, and I definitely believe some of the others here have.”

I think I involuntarily showed my skepticism. “Like who?”

“Well, I dunno. Have you ever seen any of John’s drawings? Sometimes Dave will just stop in the middle of the hall and stare at something that I can’t see. Either he is hallucinating or there really is something there. There’s a fine line between being mad and being a visionary. What’s madness today is common sense tomorrow. Nietzsche or Schopenhauer said something like that too.”

One of the nurses walked past the door, noticed us, and came in. “What yous two gossiping about?” she smiled.

We both smiled innocently back.

“Twenty minutes till lock-up time, okay guys?”

“Alright.” I said.

She disappeared back up