Nima One Wednesday 1967

You hoped the nurses kept out of your room their messages from the shrink about her mixing with the crazies. Your parents had paid for the private room attached to the locked ward of the mental hospital to keep you from the crazy ones. You had to go past them to the toilets and washroom, but that was the downside of the place. When you did venture out to either places the crazies looked at you with staring eyes and those silly smiles or those stiff faces that had forgotten how to smile. Your room was small, but gave you privacy, a place to sit alone or lay on your bed and smoke or think. You stood at the window and peered out at the grounds below. Sunlight warmed up the room and you. A few trustee patients were allowed out in the grounds to sit or wander and stand by the closed gates and look out at the sane world. You lit up one of the cigarettes Benny brought you at the weekend. You wish he lived nearer so he could visit during the week, but he lived too far off for that. The cigarette relaxed you. Two things you miss most: sex and a fix. Neither available there. Some nights even the plump night nurse seems desirable sexually. The prescribed drugs are to combat the other drugs you got addicted to. You inhaled deeply, watched a man walk along the road that led up to the hospital from the closed gates at the other end. He walked stiffly as if he’d s**t himself. You smiled. Smiling was not the usual thing to do there. He sat on one of the wooden benches and you gazed at him. Sunlight fell on him making him look bright and blessed. Sanity was like a private wealth. You gazed at the man as he undid his trousers and played with himself.