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annwfyn[Inspired by depictions of the psychiatric hospital estate in modern urban fantasy and popular fiction. A true and accurate depiction of life when you are a tormented waif in an asylum, pursued by demons and John Constantine. Research carried out by me at the Maudsley and Gartnavel Hospitals over the last six or seven years. Any bitterness all my own. At least that’s genre appropriate, right?]
John Constantine pulled his collar up around his face to try and keep out the cold winter wind as he leant in to talk to his contact.
The contact leant in and murmured “the dead girl had a sister.”
John Constantine felt a shiver run through him.
“A sister?”
“A twin. She was there on the night of the rift. She’s not been the same since.
“Is she…?”
“Yes. She’s in the asylum now. Tormented by messages from the other side, they say,”
Constantine lit a cigarette – the smoke quickly whipped away by the wind.
“Well,” he said. “Guess I better find a way of getting into that place to see her then, don’t I?”
His contact looked surprised.
“Oh, that’s not difficult. Visiting hours are 2 pm to 6 pm daily. You just need to get the number 10 bus.”
“What? The number 10 bus? It goes all the way out into the countryside?”
“Oh! You’re thinking of the old Victorian asylum. The big mansion place with the attic and the weird hedge maze. Nah, mate. That got shut down in 1987. These days psych patients have a wing in the new Queen Elizabeth super hospital out along the ring road. They do have parking as well, but it’s £4 per hour,”
“What?!”
Constantine was genuinely horrified.
“But that’s monstrous! £4 per hour! The old place had free parking, along with the friendly poltergeists”
“I know,” his contact said gloomily. “Things just aren’t what they used to be,”
*
[2 hours later]
John Constantine stood before the great hulking shape of the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, gazing up at the wing that held the most severe of mental patients, those few, terrible, broken people. He could not repress a shudder. Mostly because it was a modern NHS building which meant 17 different units in the building, a lot of corridors and inadequate signage.
In the end it took him 34 minutes to find his way up the stairs and he got lost in Endocrinology twice.
But at last he found his way to the anti-climactic sliding glass doors that lead to the asylum. There was a sign. It said ‘Honeysuckle Acute Psychiatric Ward’.
The old asylum hadn’t called anywhere ‘honeysuckle’ but Constantine tried to ignore that as he pressed the buzzer.
*
“Oh!” the cheerful plump nurse said enthusiastically. “You’re here to see Alinor. How lovely. She’ll probably be drawing around now,”
Constantine felt a shiver of expectation go through him.
“Drawing? Messages she says she receives from the other side?”
“We don’t like to focus on that” the nurse said firmly. “She’s drawing. Hopefully she’ll have taken my advice and maybe tried some flowers. But I can take you to see her.”
This, Constantine thought, was more like it. Some things never changed. The beautiful but tormented waifish girl, painting in her own blood on the attic walls.
“Upstairs?” he asked hopefully. “So I can see the paintings?”
The nurse looked confused.
“Upstairs? No. That’s Endocrinology. She’ll be in the art therapy room,”
That was a let down.
“Painting on the walls?” Constantine enquired. Maybe all was not totally lost.
“Bless you, no!” the nurse said firmly. “The Inspectorate would have our heads for that. No, she has paper. But we can’t go the art therapy room. Most of the ward are hanging out there. The TV in the main rec room is broken, you see, and we keep the magazine stash in the art therapy room. You’ll have to fight through the mob trying to get a copy of ‘Take A Break’.
“But we have visitors rooms. I’ll bring her right there.”
*
The visitors room was magnolia. Everything here was magnolia. The chairs were standard NHS soft furnishings, and everything smelled of disinfectant.
Alinor was also a sad disappointment. She was wearing a hospital gown, but it was somehow less flattering that Constantine remembered. Maybe you had to be very thin to make that kind of thing look good, and Alinor was, tragically, not that thin. Constantine remembered, with an unpleasant jolt, that the majority of serious antipsychotics have weight gain as a common side effect and NHS catering budgets rarely stretched to salads.
Even her hair wasn’t artfully dishevelled. Apparently someone had encouraged her to brush it. Clearly the NHS staff in this Ward had too much time on their hands! Art therapy? Hair brushes?
Still, Constantine managed to pull up his collar and deliver the young woman standing before him a smouldering look, the look of a demon hunter, haunted by his past.
“John Constantine?” the girl said, in an oddly calm voice. “I’ve been expecting you”
This was more like it!
“The voices told you?” Constantine enquired.
She nodded, her huge dark eyes never leaving his face.
“I saw you,” she said. “In my dreams. Your face. Over and over,”
She held out a sheaf of paper. Constantine looked down. A giant yellow blob gazed back at him.
“I mean,” Alinor continued, “I couldn’t draw it properly. All the art therapy room has are crayons.
“They’re mostly broken and the only colours left are yellow and orange. Nothing really comes out well.
“So, anyway, I kind of gave up drawing and mostly put your instructions into bullet points. I thought that might be more useful for you anyway,”
Constantine stared.
“Bullet points?”
“Yes. Bullet points. You know, my sister’s messages, directions, names of the relevant infernal beings chasing you. Oh, and I’ve done a page of prophecies in descending order of likelihood,”
“Right. Yes. I see. Actual bullet points.”
Well, this was unexpected.
“Hope this helps,” Alinor said. “Oh, by the way, if you need to speak to me again, I won’t be here after tomorrow,”
“What?”
“I’m going home,”
Constantine stared at the girl in front of him.
“Home? But you’re constantly hearing voices, tormented by infernal beings from the pits of hell, in communion with your dead sister. They can’t send you home!”
Alinor looked wry.
“Mr Constantine, do you have any idea how much money it costs to keep me here? Even with the 27p budget per day for food. It costs a fortune and NHS cuts mean they can’t afford to throw that kind of cash around. Right now, I’m not an active danger to myself, or anyone else. I just talk to demons. I’m, frankly, WAY down the priority list for a bed here. They’re increasingly my diazepam dose and sending me to stay with my mum.
“I get to see a CPN – that’s s community psychiatrist nurse – once every two weeks though. And I can call the crisis line if I need more.”
She must have noticed Constantine’s crestfallen expression because Alinor leant forward to pat his hand comfortingly.
“It’s OK. I’d like to see you. It’ll be talking to you or filling in a 93 page ESA application form. Frankly, a nice bit of communion with the infernal will be a relief….”
END
John Constantine pulled his collar up around his face to try and keep out the cold winter wind as he leant in to talk to his contact.
The contact leant in and murmured “the dead girl had a sister.”
John Constantine felt a shiver run through him.
“A sister?”
“A twin. She was there on the night of the rift. She’s not been the same since.
“Is she…?”
“Yes. She’s in the asylum now. Tormented by messages from the other side, they say,”
Constantine lit a cigarette – the smoke quickly whipped away by the wind.
“Well,” he said. “Guess I better find a way of getting into that place to see her then, don’t I?”
His contact looked surprised.
“Oh, that’s not difficult. Visiting hours are 2 pm to 6 pm daily. You just need to get the number 10 bus.”
“What? The number 10 bus? It goes all the way out into the countryside?”
“Oh! You’re thinking of the old Victorian asylum. The big mansion place with the attic and the weird hedge maze. Nah, mate. That got shut down in 1987. These days psych patients have a wing in the new Queen Elizabeth super hospital out along the ring road. They do have parking as well, but it’s £4 per hour,”
“What?!”
Constantine was genuinely horrified.
“But that’s monstrous! £4 per hour! The old place had free parking, along with the friendly poltergeists”
“I know,” his contact said gloomily. “Things just aren’t what they used to be,”
*
[2 hours later]
John Constantine stood before the great hulking shape of the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, gazing up at the wing that held the most severe of mental patients, those few, terrible, broken people. He could not repress a shudder. Mostly because it was a modern NHS building which meant 17 different units in the building, a lot of corridors and inadequate signage.
In the end it took him 34 minutes to find his way up the stairs and he got lost in Endocrinology twice.
But at last he found his way to the anti-climactic sliding glass doors that lead to the asylum. There was a sign. It said ‘Honeysuckle Acute Psychiatric Ward’.
The old asylum hadn’t called anywhere ‘honeysuckle’ but Constantine tried to ignore that as he pressed the buzzer.
*
“Oh!” the cheerful plump nurse said enthusiastically. “You’re here to see Alinor. How lovely. She’ll probably be drawing around now,”
Constantine felt a shiver of expectation go through him.
“Drawing? Messages she says she receives from the other side?”
“We don’t like to focus on that” the nurse said firmly. “She’s drawing. Hopefully she’ll have taken my advice and maybe tried some flowers. But I can take you to see her.”
This, Constantine thought, was more like it. Some things never changed. The beautiful but tormented waifish girl, painting in her own blood on the attic walls.
“Upstairs?” he asked hopefully. “So I can see the paintings?”
The nurse looked confused.
“Upstairs? No. That’s Endocrinology. She’ll be in the art therapy room,”
That was a let down.
“Painting on the walls?” Constantine enquired. Maybe all was not totally lost.
“Bless you, no!” the nurse said firmly. “The Inspectorate would have our heads for that. No, she has paper. But we can’t go the art therapy room. Most of the ward are hanging out there. The TV in the main rec room is broken, you see, and we keep the magazine stash in the art therapy room. You’ll have to fight through the mob trying to get a copy of ‘Take A Break’.
“But we have visitors rooms. I’ll bring her right there.”
*
The visitors room was magnolia. Everything here was magnolia. The chairs were standard NHS soft furnishings, and everything smelled of disinfectant.
Alinor was also a sad disappointment. She was wearing a hospital gown, but it was somehow less flattering that Constantine remembered. Maybe you had to be very thin to make that kind of thing look good, and Alinor was, tragically, not that thin. Constantine remembered, with an unpleasant jolt, that the majority of serious antipsychotics have weight gain as a common side effect and NHS catering budgets rarely stretched to salads.
Even her hair wasn’t artfully dishevelled. Apparently someone had encouraged her to brush it. Clearly the NHS staff in this Ward had too much time on their hands! Art therapy? Hair brushes?
Still, Constantine managed to pull up his collar and deliver the young woman standing before him a smouldering look, the look of a demon hunter, haunted by his past.
“John Constantine?” the girl said, in an oddly calm voice. “I’ve been expecting you”
This was more like it!
“The voices told you?” Constantine enquired.
She nodded, her huge dark eyes never leaving his face.
“I saw you,” she said. “In my dreams. Your face. Over and over,”
She held out a sheaf of paper. Constantine looked down. A giant yellow blob gazed back at him.
“I mean,” Alinor continued, “I couldn’t draw it properly. All the art therapy room has are crayons.
“They’re mostly broken and the only colours left are yellow and orange. Nothing really comes out well.
“So, anyway, I kind of gave up drawing and mostly put your instructions into bullet points. I thought that might be more useful for you anyway,”
Constantine stared.
“Bullet points?”
“Yes. Bullet points. You know, my sister’s messages, directions, names of the relevant infernal beings chasing you. Oh, and I’ve done a page of prophecies in descending order of likelihood,”
“Right. Yes. I see. Actual bullet points.”
Well, this was unexpected.
“Hope this helps,” Alinor said. “Oh, by the way, if you need to speak to me again, I won’t be here after tomorrow,”
“What?”
“I’m going home,”
Constantine stared at the girl in front of him.
“Home? But you’re constantly hearing voices, tormented by infernal beings from the pits of hell, in communion with your dead sister. They can’t send you home!”
Alinor looked wry.
“Mr Constantine, do you have any idea how much money it costs to keep me here? Even with the 27p budget per day for food. It costs a fortune and NHS cuts mean they can’t afford to throw that kind of cash around. Right now, I’m not an active danger to myself, or anyone else. I just talk to demons. I’m, frankly, WAY down the priority list for a bed here. They’re increasingly my diazepam dose and sending me to stay with my mum.
“I get to see a CPN – that’s s community psychiatrist nurse – once every two weeks though. And I can call the crisis line if I need more.”
She must have noticed Constantine’s crestfallen expression because Alinor leant forward to pat his hand comfortingly.
“It’s OK. I’d like to see you. It’ll be talking to you or filling in a 93 page ESA application form. Frankly, a nice bit of communion with the infernal will be a relief….”
END
no subject
Date: 2019-08-21 04:35 am (UTC)