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

then I noticed that walk. With every sharp little step, there was a deliberate wiggle of her tight little ass. She didn’t look like a model, she was one. The fact was emphasized by her heels. They weren’t big high heels, only an inch or two, but they were still heels. I didn’t think you were allowed to wear them in hospitals, but I supposed since she was head nurse she could do what the hell she liked.

“That room is the nurse’s station,” she said, nodding to a closed door. “It’s off-limits to patients, as is my office there. That’s the quiet room, you can go there anytime you need to chill out and calm down. That’s the toilets there- this is a male and female ward, so you each have your own, and here, here is the common room.”

The ward turned in an L-shape and opened out into a spacious living area with minimal furniture apart from two separate dinner tables, and on the back wall- the centerpiece of the room, surrounded by the plastic deck chairs that you would normally only see in peoples back gardens- a massive, fifty-inch plasma TV, shielded in a thick plastic see-through cover.  A lady was shining up the screen with a cloth. She turned to smile at me then went on with her job.

“It’s a big Telly, isn’t it?” Sanders said.

I nodded.

“You can watch that anytime you’re not on activities. Now, you must be tired. Do you want to go and get settled in?”

“Where is everyone?” I asked. Apart from the receptionist and the lady at the TV, I hadn’t seen another soul on the grounds.

“Oh, they are all in bed. The rooms get locked at eight. The night staff are in the nurse’s station.” And sure enough, at that moment a cackle of laughter rang out from a few doors down.

“I’ll show you to your room.”

I followed her wiggling ass and swinging hips back down the corridor. As we past the closed doors on our left I peered in through the small glass panels, trying to get a glimpse inside. In the darkness I could just make out the dark figures of bodies crumpled up inside their beds.

Sanders stopped at one of the doors, jangled through her keys and unlocked it.

She stepped inside and switched on the light and I followed her in. It was a small room. The single bed took up almost all the space. There was a cupboard and a set of drawers and opposite the door a little window with large black bars beyond it.

“Now, I need to know, do you have a mobile or laptop with you?” she inquired, quite snappily, looking at my bag, “Because they’re not allowed in the ward. It interferes with the therapy.”

I didn’t have anything like that. I had just come from custody, and I never expected to even be there, so I never got much time to prepare. “No.” I replied quietly. “All I have with me is clothes.”

She kept looking at my backpack. I pulled it off and held it out.

Her eyes on me looked satisfied. “No. It’s okay,” she said in slightly calmer tone, “I’ll trust you on that. Some other media is allowed. Music, certain books, mp3 players and IPods, but you have to check with me first, and it will be monitored. You can also use the phone on the ward for an hour a week, but again that is monitored. Now breakfast is at eight tomorrow, so you’ll get a wake-up call at seven-thirty. You’ll be needing a shower, and you can have one after breakfast. Do you need anything else?”

I stood in the middle of the room under the artificial light. The window looked smothered and pathetic under the overbearing bars. The way she’d said that I would be needing a shower told me what a mess I must have looked.

She stood irritably with her hands on her hips.

“Do you have to lock the door?” I said. “Can I go for a shower now?”

“No, sorry. Locking the doors is protocol. This is a high-security ward, so all doors have to be locked from eight.”

“Is it necessary?”

“Of course it is!” she raised her voice, “The rules are there for a reason. Now if there’s nothing else-“

“What about the bathroom?”

“If you need the bathroom, it’s best to go right now. There is a buzzer here. If you are up in the middle of the night and need then press this.” She pointed to a button on the wall by the door, “Otherwise you will just have to wait till morning.”

I was a bit taken aback. I didn’t know what else to say.

“Okay. Thanks. I don’t need to go.”

“Right. I’ll give you another ten minutes till the light has to go off. Goodnight then, Aisha. You’ll be fine here.” She flashed a smile and pulled the door shut tight, and I watched through the glass panel as she locked it and walked away.

A heavy sense of resignation pushed down on me. I turned around from the door and took in the small box room, feeling any morale I had left slipping away. The air felt hard and heavy as I gazed at those pasty white walls, that little bed, that depressing-looking window. Rooms like this are built to sap the soul, I thought.

So this is it now. This jail cell.

I walked the four paces around the bed to the window, but I couldn’t see a thing beyond the bars apart from the dim outline of a building across from my cell.

I dropped my backpack to the floor and went back around the bed to switch off the light. Jesus, what a day. What a fucking day it had been.

I kicked off my shoes and crawled under the covers with my clothes still on.

Chapter 8