Acid Rain

by R. D Rhodes

  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 his shirt, but Larry teetered back at the last moment, laughing even louder and with more delight.

  With each failed grasp, Kev got more riled-up. “FUCKING STOP IT WILL YOU! LARRY!” He grabbed a fistful of shirt, but Larry pushed him away and the force sent him back into one of the tables.

  Larry laughed at Kev’s embarrassment and hopping on his right leg, pulled up his shirt and swung it above his head, his man-boobs jiggling as his orangutan chest went round the room.

  Sanders squirmed from behind the serving table. Dale made a half-assed attempt, but Larry jumped back once more. Then they had him, squeezed him in until he was cornered. Kev closed on his left and Dale edged around the back, Larry’s face still full of infant joy when Kev eventually grabbed his wrist.

  I waited for him to react at the man almost a foot and a half shorter- but he didn’t do anything, and allowed himself to be pulled back around the table, his upper body naked, his shirt in his left hand, that innocent smile still etched on his face. Dale locked in his other arm, and as they walked towards the corridor, Larry’s fat, sweaty chest at their eye level, it slowly dawned on him where he was going, and his smile dropped, and he whined and whinnied like a horse. “No! I don’t want to go back!” He thrashed only his head and shoulders, seemingly unaware of the strength of his own body. “No! Let me finish my breakfast.”

  Everyone in the room watched him go.

  “Let me finish my breakfast!” Larry wailed again. His head dropped submissively. He looked about to cry.

  “Are you going to behave then?” Sanders shouted.

  The three of them halted. Sanders walked in front of them and stared at Larry. “Yes. I will.” he pleaded. “I will. I will. I promise.”

  “You know how seriously we treat broken promises?” Sanders warned.

  “Yes. I will behave! Let me go, please.” His upper body wriggled but his arms stayed rigid.

  “Okay.” Sanders nodded. Kev and Dale let him go. “Sit down at the table and finish your breakfast.”

  Larry turned, his face earnest and heeding her words, his arms swinging determinedly as he made back for his chair. He sat down with his food.

  The staff went back to the serving area. Sanders frowned at me. “Morning, Aisha. Liz, you got hers there?” she said in the same breath.

  I collected my tray and went over to join Sandy, sitting down next to him, our backs to the room. But he glanced at me coldly and looked away.

  “Okay?” I asked.

  “Fine.” he grunted.

  But he was annoyed at me for some reason. Or annoyed with something else. His body was tense. He kept his face turned away as he ate his porridge.

  Maybe he hasn’t slept? I thought. I let him be and ate my own food silently.

  The room fell back into its usual flatness. The TV droning above everything, the staff chatting away.

  I had almost finished my food. Sandy had almost finished his. “Where’s Nina?” I asked him at last.

  “In her room.”

  “How come?”

  He sighed, turned slowly and was just about to reply when someone’s scream pierced our ears, “THEY’RE WATCHING US! THEY’RE WATCHING US!” I looked round at a guy in the TV crowd,
- his face was contorted, his hands around his horrified mouth- he looked like The Scream painting I once saw in London.

  Sanders ran over, “We need more medication,” she shouted to Liz, “Where’s Jean?”

  I looked at Sandy and he looked back at me. His tired head rolled on his shoulders. His eyes were almost shut.

  “THEY’RE WATCHING US!” The man screamed again. His mouth was so wide it seemed dislocated. His eyes looked demented.

  “Who’s watching us?” Larry stood up.

  “ALL OF THEM!” The man screamed.

  Larry held his hands over his ears. Liz joined Sanders in holding onto the man while Dale and Kev ran for Larry, but too late, he put his hands under the table and with the smallest of efforts flipped it up and over. It crashed down. Plates and cups and food went flying. Larry stomped his feet and joined the man in screaming and Kev and Dale threw themselves upon him. A gasp of shock went through the room as Larry keeled over like a fallen tree and smashed onto his back, narrowly avoiding cracking his skull on the edge of the table. Dale took his legs, Kev took his arms and sat on him, his right knee crushing into his chest. A pained veil came over Larry’s bulging eyes and he seemed to lose all sense. “AAAARGGHHHHAAAAGHH!” he writhed and struggled, for real this time. Kev bore his knee down harder and pushed his palm over his face, pressing his head into the floor.

  Larry’s screams were terrible. But the other man’s were even worse. Then another patient joined in. Many of them were panicking. I saw a lady double over in pain, holding her stomach.

  Kev’s sparkling eyes scanned the room, absorbing the moment with what seemed like pleasure, as he pinned Larry down. Then those blue eyes glared down into Larry’s face, he pressed the bone of his knee down deeper and pushed his weight into his hand. “Watch his fuckin head!” I found myself shouting. I couldn’t hold it in and raced over and beat Kev’s hand away and leaned over Larry, trying to calm him down. His petrified eyes flashed before me.

  “THEY’RE ALL WATCHING US!! I SEE THEM. I SEE THEM.” Sanders and Liz had their hands on the man’s shoulders, going “Ssshh, shhh, hush, hush.”

  A fourth person joined the screams, the horror filling the air. It was chaos. Dale struggled to hold Larry’s right arm down, Kev tightened his grip on his left and pushed all his weight into his knee, and I squeezed in between them as Kev’s lips curled into a grin. “Watch what you’re doin!” I shouted “You’re crushin his chest!” Kev’s head twisted round and his minty breath blew into my face. His eyes ate into me, laughing at me, his eyes laughing first, then his lips. But he said nothing.

  “Call for backup!” Sanders shouted. “Shh. Hush. It’s okay, Paul. It’s okay.” Liz stood up and took off waddling as fast as I had seen her move, when just then Jean came running in the other direction, with a needle in her hand.

  “Where were you?! Sanders snapped. “No! Do Larry first!”

  Jean came over. She flipped off the cap of the needle and pulled up Larry’s sleeve on the arm Dale held. With a sudden jab she landed on a bright blue vein and she pushed her thumb down on the trigger. I watched as the anger in him ebbed away,

  Thwack!

  Dale stood up, tottering. Crimson blood poured from a deep gash in his head. One of the canteen trays lay at his feet. In a flash his apathy vanished, and he spun around and grabbed the man who threw it, close-lined him around the throat like a wrestler, and dragged him down the corridor kicking and screaming.

  Jean only pushed half the solution into Larry’s arm, it was all that was needed and he lay there on the ground, his pupils on the ceiling, dilating, and she stood up and went to the other man. His screams hummed in the air along with others. Four men sprinted into the room.

  Sanders relief was obvious. “BREAKFAST IS OVER.” she shouted. “EVERYONE BACK TO THEIR ROOMS.”

  The men herded us quickly together, pushing and shoving us out of the common room and down the hall. I felt hands on my back and was propelled forward with the crowd- patients in front, the burly shepherds balling out behind us. Before my room, I caught the terrified face of the woman next door, Claire. She was doubled up in her bed and holding her stomach.

  The commotion faded out. I have no idea how long later it was, but the ward went silent. And the silence reigned for hours. Until wheels screeched along the floor. A voice called several names, then mine. There was a knock on the door.

  “Come in.” I shouted.

  I got up from my bed and walked over. As the door opened Jean was standing there, two burly emergency staff members behind her.

  “Here you go, Aisha. You going to take these today?” she handed me the blue pills.

  “Yeah.” I nodded. “Sorry, about yesterday.”

  “That’s okay.”

  I popped the pills in my mouth.

  “Okay. Let’s see.”

  I opened wide and tilted my head back as she placed her finger and thumb on my chin and looked in.

  “Okay, that’s fine. Good girl.”

  She stepped back out and closed the door.

  Chapter 16

  T he spherical angles poked up into my tongue. I maneuvered the pills out and spat them on the floor, stomped them under my foot, and kicked the crumbs under the bed. I was full of adrenaline. Now I knew why everyone was doped up, I actually felt a bit sorry for some of the staff. But it couldn’t go on like this. How do people like Kev get these care jobs? I thought. They shouldn’t be allowed near these places.

  I heard nothing. I looked through the glass, but the corridor seemed empty. I started running on the spot to try and release some of the energy. But it didn’t work. I tried squats and press-ups, then paced the five steps of the room, seething inside. It was only a matter of time before someone did something serious. Something had to give.

  I surveyed my window. Even if I could find a way to smash the glass, I wouldn’t be able to squeeze beyond those bars, so any Hollywoodesque notion of twisting my bedsheets into a rope and dangling down to freedom wouldn’t work. The sheets weren’t long enough anyway. I thought of the other options. Every window I’d seen in the hospital was barred. The hall doors were all securely locked. There was no way out but the way I came in. If I could just get through the two locked doors, get through that buffer zone, then I was as good as free. And then I remembered Sanders had mentioned a library. Of course! I needed books anyway. There had to be a chance.

  I still had my promised phone call as well, but Sanders or someone else would be sitting by the phone, ready to cut it off the second I said the wrong thing. And what would I be allowed to say? What could I say? Mrs. Mack didn’t know me well enough, so any innuendos wouldn’t work.

  I sat on the bed and tried to calm myself. I breathed deeply through my nose and exhaled through my mouth like I had done the day before. I closed my eyes tighter. Inhaled and exhaled. Inhaled and exhaled. Breathed in fresh air and imagined clearing away all the shit as I breathed out slow and steady.

  After a while, time seemed to slow down. I could feel myself becoming more relaxed… I sucked up all the air I could take into my chest, breathed out then repeated the process. The pain went away… I let my mind wander.

  I imagined myself floating right through the window and out over the grounds. Leaving the whole place behind, I drifted away over the miles of woodland. I was above it all, unchained, flying over a green canopy that seemed to cover the whole earth. I rose higher. I was amongst the clouds. I floated amongst them and all I could see was white.

  The wind blew through my hair and wrapped me in a great calmness. I could breathe. I was me again.

  The clouds parted below, and I looked down at the earth. I spotted an opening in the forest and let myself float down. I came down past the treetops, the great branches stretching up from below and expanding out in all directions. I drifted down further, and the branches got thicker and fatter, then I saw where the huge girths of the trunks were rooted into the earth, and I rooted with them.

  It was beautiful and green everywher
e. The grass was like a soft carpet, and there was such a sense of infinite peace and simplicity, that made me feel so happy, tears welled in my eyes. The wind hushed the branches. No traffic, no screaming, no suffering. Just that soothing breeze coursing past my ears.

  I noticed a couple of boulders next to each other and made my way across. Both rocks were low enough to sit on, with flat, smooth surfaces. I sat on one and kicked my feet through the long grass.

  This is perfect, I thought. I couldn’t help smiling and when I started, I couldn’t stop. The trees way above my head, the wind hushing in my ears caressing my soul. I soaked it all up. All the great quietness and solitude. I became faintly aware of my body, still in my ward room, sitting on the bed with a grin.

  But just then, a face materialized amongst the trees beyond. I peered closer and made out the body as well. It came out of the forest and approached me. He sat down on the other boulder.

  It was my dad.

  I looked into his eyes and recoiled in a state of shock. His eyes were almost the exact same as Nina’s in group therapy, and that screaming man in the common room- anxious, tormented. His face was full of sorrow. But he didn’t look at me, he was staring at my feet. I realized that it was taking him a great deal of strength just to be there.

  “Aisha,” he said, in his old familiar voice. “I’m so sorry. Please forgive me. Please?”

  A shiver ran up my spine. I was conscious of every light, every sound and every movement. He was sitting there in front of me as clear as I last remembered him, and his voice and tone brought all my old memories of him flooding back. But his eyes. I had never seen them look like that. I had never seen him look like that. I couldn’t bring myself to be angry with him anymore, I couldn’t be angry at a face as full of anguish as that.

  “I’m here to ask you for your forgiveness. I was wrong. I have no excuse. I did some horrible things to you. Please. Forgive me. I am sorry.”