THE LOCKED WARD

PATIENTS ON A LOCKED WARD

There was one door out and in of the locked ward and that is a double door and both doors are locked and unlocked when meals are brought in and taken out and members of staff arrive for duty or leave. There is a square window of thick glass in the door so anyone coming in can see into the ward before entering. You used to watch the doors being unlocked and then locked again to see how much time elapsed in the process and how long it would take you to escape in that short duration of being unlocked. Yiska told you you wouldn't get far before they got you back in the ward and locked it up again. You tried it one lunch time standing near the door  your mind on edge your hand ready to push open the door and your feet to rush down the corridor. The nurse unlocked the door and brought the meals into the ward and in the short duration you pushed back the door and ran for it down the corridor chased by two males nurses one big guy and a shorter sprightly guy who rugby tackled you to the floor and held you there until his out of breath colleague came running up. Between them they hauled you back to the ward and locked the door behind them and stood you by the wall. The sprightly guy asked you what the heck you were doing. You said nothing but pulled the dressing gown about you and found that the slippers had fallen off in the run. The big nurse handled you the slippers carefully and walked off. The other nurse asked his question again but you looked past him at the door at the square window at the chance to escape gone and failed. The nurse walked off up the ward rattled that you had said nothing but stared past him or at the green patterned linoleum flooring. Yiska muttered her I told you sos and stood next to you. Are you ok? she said. Sure you said just had to try it bugged me daily seeing that one chance waiting for me to give it a go. You smelt her perfume as she got near you her arm linked through yours. You thought back to that time a few nights back when you and she got into the ECT room and climbed into one of the narrow recovery beds but before you could do anything you heard footsteps. You crept out of the bed just in time as the night nurse switched on the lights and asked Yiska what she was doing there. You hid under the bed out of sight until the nurse walked Yiska back to her bed in the female dormitory and you crept out and back to the toilets before the nurse came back to lock the door of the room. It was close too close for comfort but you almost made it almost but didn't. The big nurse came along and asked if you were all right and you nodded and he said don't try it again at least not in your pyjamas and he laughed and went off to the other room. Yiska poked out her tongue at his large departing back and kissed your cheek. I missed you the other night when that nurse took me back to the dormitory. I wondered if you got out all right. I was disappointed we didn't make it. You said you were too and held her near you feeling her waist and smelling the perfume getting stronger. You both walked back to the main lounge where dinners were being sorted and other patients were already sitting down waiting in anticipation for lunch and looking at the two nurses who were there. You sat next to Yiska and waited. You felt her knee touch yours pushing against yours. You looked at her and smiled. A dinner was placed in front of you and you stared at it before taking the plastic knife(in case someone steals a knife to cut their wrists or throat)and fork you began to pick at it now and then taking a bite then sipping from a plastic beaker of water. As you ate you thought of that evening you first came to the locked ward and within an hour you had attempted to hang yourself (with the dressing gown belt they forgot to remove) from the pipe of the toilet system and had almost completed it when some nurse passing by saw you and screamed SUICIDE and there was a hustle of bodies and someone cut the belt which was taut around your neck. You were taken out and put on the floor and held down while some nurse felt for a pulse and placed one of her small hands on your heart. You smiled as you recalled her leaning over you her breasts a few inches from your nose. Yiska ate little. She poked at it with the plastic fork like it was a specimen to be investigated and not eaten. Her face was blank. Her eyes just staring. I gazed at her sideways on. Her profile seemed sculptured. Suddenly she leaped up and with the plastic knife she jagged at her wrist frantically until blood dripped on the knife. A nurse grabbed the knife from Yiska's hand and another nurse held her arms back. You jumped out of your chair as Yiska kicked off kicking and clawing and spitting out abuse. The blood suddenly spurted out as Yiska bit at her wrist angrily and the bodies of Yiska and the nurse fell to the floor and other patients fled or screamed. You stood passively wondering what had made Yiska kick off and why she had tried to cut her wrist with a plastic knife not a great weapon for it. As they calmed her down the big nurse injected her with something and she stopped struggling and lay there still. Hard to explain what it is in you that makes you want to take your life like that and want to kill kill kill.