Amelia had been laying motionless on her bed for hours. She had been staring at the bright white ceiling, occasionally glancing at the clock that was opposite her bed. Seconds felt like minutes and minutes felt like hours. Many thoughts had replayed in her mind throughout the duration of the day. How would she face her family? How would she face Tom? What did people think? How would she get out of here? When would she get out of here? Amelia was interrupted from her thoughts when their was a hard knock at the door. "It's dinner time in five minutes. You need to leave this room and you need to eat something", barked a short, plump man in a purple uniform, who was a healthcare assistant. "But I'm not hungry", Amelia answered. The plump man huffed, whilst wrinkling up his flat, bulbous nose. "You need to co-operate with us Amelia. Otherwise you will be back in that cell. I want you out of this room now", the plump man demanded. Amelia turned onto her side, facing away from unpleasant, chubby man. She wasn't hungry, nor did she want to face the world. She was mentally preparing herself to see her family in the evening. "Right, if you don't move within ten seconds, then I am going to physically drag you into that dining room!" snarled the plump man. Amelia threw herself off the bed, whilst yelling, "All fucking right then, arsehole". The plump healthcare assistant huffed, as if Amelia was an inconvinience to him.
Amelia had wandered out of her room, looking and feeling very lost. She was shaking and had tears in her once alive, sapphire blue eyes. Amelia was anxious about meeting the other patients. Would they sense her fear? Would they make fun of her? Were they as crazy as they were portrayed in films? Amelia wandered down the corridor until she saw a dining room, where a congregation of people had formed as they waited for their dinner.
Amelia opened the door into the newly decorated dining room. It was painted bright yellow, and was an extremely bright room. The room was filled with large, round pine tables with matching pine chairs, with 5 chairs at each table. Amelia noticed a pine bookcase at the back of the room, filled with ropey looking books that had definitely seen better days. There was another table at the back of the room, which had a games box resting on top of it which Amelia was sure included a game of scrabble that was probably twenty years old. The walls were filled with artwork that had been created by patients and there were photos on the wall of staff and ex patients. Amelia was sure that the smiles in the photos were fake, just like the smiles Amelia had been feigning for weeks.
Amelia took in her surroundings and then looked at the people who were sat eating their dinner or queuing up at the food trolley. Some patients were chatting happily to each other, whilst others were sat alone, looking very morose. "What d'ya want duck?" asked the hostess who was serving the food at the food trolley, interrupting Amelia's observations. Amelia didn't look up at the hostess, but mumbled quietly, "Just chips". The hostess dumped a load of chips on Amelia's plate, which looked very unappetising and aneamic. Amelia looked up to see where she could sit. Each table had people sat at them and Amelia felt exposed. She picked the first table that she came to, where a chubby blonde haired woman was sat next to a skinny man with brown hair. They were chuckling to each other when Amelia arrived at the table. When she sat down, the pair stopped chuckling and began to analyse Amelia. Amelia instantly looked down at her unappetising plate of chips whilst poking them with her fork as she tried to avoid eye contact with the woman and man who were sat opposite to her.
The table had been silent for five minutes, when finally the chubby, blonde haired woman broke the silence. "Are you new here?" she asked Amelia, who then nodded whilst still poking at her chips. "I guess you've never been to one of these places before. Well my name's Sarah, and this is Sam". Amelia looked up at Sarah and Sam. Amelia thought that they looked far too normal and happy to be in a psychiatric ward. "You look, normal", Amelia mumbled. Sam smiled at Amelia, "Define normal", he replied. Amelia managed a faint smile. Maybe the people here weren't as bad as she had anticipated. They weren't all rocking in the corner, nor were they in straightjackets. "It takes a few days to get used to being here, but it gets less scary as the days go on. Me and Sam are regulars here so we know everything there is to know about this place. What's your name?" Sarah enquired, whilst smiling at Amelia. Amelia looked Sarah in the eye. She had smoky, brown eyes with beautifully curved eyebrows. "Erm, I'm, umm. My name's Amelia. I, umm, I just don't know what to expect, or what to do, or what I am supposed to do. I'm so scared", Amelia replied with a quiver in her voice. "It's okay. We all get like that duck. There's no structure really. There's med times, meal times, and two days a week where we get to see our doctors. Then we do whatever we want. There's not a lot to do really. There's the lounge where the tv is, fag time every hour and theres some shitty boardgames and cards in the box over there. Once you get trusted a bit, or staff can be arsed to go with you, you can go to the occupational therapy rooms where you can do some more stuff like art, sewing and cooking. Things like that. Sometimes they have activities in the evening, like bingo, which is a rate laugh! But that's about it really", Sam explained to Amelia. "Thank you", Amelia replied gratefully, whilst managing a smile that almost resembled a grimace. "Anything you need, or want to know come and ask us. Fancy watching a bitta telly with us?" Sarah asked Amelia politely. Amelia had nothing else better to do whilst she waited for her family to come and visit, and it would be the perfect distraction as she had been worked up over it all day.
No comments:
Post a Comment