A White Labyrinthine Promenade And An Interview With A Doctor

Susan Stringer was awake, if ‘awake’ one could truly define this state, this existence, the mindless monotony of the world in which she now found herself ensconced, this safe constrained realm of restriction, regulation and control. Awake-asleep, conscious-unconscious, these were relative terms lacking any true delineation; categorisation, classification and definition blurred, smeared beneath the thumb of institutional rigour. Today was to be different, though, totally different, somehow she could tell.

Today she had been roused in the usual manner it was true, the harsh ‘ wake-up’ bell, as always, ringing in her ears, eyes opening to be greeted by the frost-white desert expanse that was her room. Today was different, today it was Matron herself performing the morning ritual. Today it was Matron who released the toggles securing the bed covers, today it was Matron who helped a still weary, unsteady, Susan to her feet, who guided her over to the desk.

One might view the replacement of one nurse with another or of a nurse by a matron unworthy of comment. Indeed at most one might, if one was to place oneself in Susan’s position, expect to view such a change as insignificant, unremarkable. One might expect that the otherwise rigid adherence to the unchanging morning ritual of the hospital’s regime would render such a detail subtle at most. However, few are those who have experienced Susan’s little world, the timeless, featureless, cocooned existence that she now floated through. Few are those who have experienced her almost dreamlike state, the boredom induced daydreaming, the jarring insult of those demanding bells, the meaningless and pointless rituals and routines. It would probably be fair to say that only those who have shared Susan’s environment, or one very similar, could hope to understand the importance of the minutest of changes. It would also be fair to say that all those who could claim such experience could be counted on two hands and could be found under the roof of this very institution, in the rooms adjacent to hers in the ‘long-term’ dormitory ward or the ‘workhouse’ suite.

A second nurse had come in, one that she had not seen before, and together with Matron half helped, half harried, Susan to her desk. The meal, her breakfast, awaited her as always. As ever, the white bowl of identically-white porridge, the white plastic beaker with the milky white tasteless drink, the white spoon.

The bell started, the mealtime bell, simultaneously Susan reached for the spoon and began eating. She had waited for the bell to ring, she hadn’t really thought about it, realised it, but nevertheless she had waited for the meal bell. She no longer automatically reached for the spoon, not without permission from the bell.

Behind her she heard the rustle of Matron’s uniform dress and then matron’s voice coming, softly, “that’s a good girl 43C, you’re very hungry, I’m sure you are.” Simultaneously she felt matron’s fingers softly and soothingly stroke the back of her neck.

Susan, between mouthfuls, answered “yes Matron” and was immediately annoyed with herself, humiliated to find herself answering so automatically. She felt utterly ridiculous and irritated at her own acceptance of the silly, petty regime and routine. She just felt so tired, so heavy, so muddled, woolly headed. She was finding it increasingly difficult to think straight, difficult to protest, to put together an argument, to demand the right to see someone in charge, demand to leave.

They had no right to keep here like this, she was a volunteer, not a prisoner, not some psychiatric patient to be kept locked up. What was going on? When was she going to meet one of the researchers or one of the doctors. It just went on and on, every day some excuse, some delay, she would have to wait a just a little longer in this room, sitting at this desk, doing nothing. Why couldn’t she go out? Not that she could, not dressed like this. Then again why did she have to remain dressed like this? She thought it was just temporary, just until they had sorted out somewhere to put her case, her belongings and the things she had brought with her, just until they found her a proper room and allocated her to a research project. Why couldn’t she have her own clothes back?

So many questions, buzzing around in her head like angry bees, questions coming and going, trains of thought coming then ending sharply, interrupted by the insistent ding, ding of that bloody bell. What else had been said to her? She tried to remember, she went over all that had been said upon her arrival, all that had been said to her since...How many days? She couldn’t quite work it out, each day seemed the same, no one event stood out in a mind since arriving, it was difficult to think back, to differentiate one day from the next. She went through his routine in her mind every day, over and over, sometimes all day, it was difficult to tell.

Why couldn’t she have something to read? Just a magazine or newspaper would do. Why oh why couldn’t she have her things, her clothes at least? What was that she had overheard Matron saying on the first day, the day she had arrived, something about her uniform not being ready? What did that mean? What bloody uniform? Why would she need to wear a uniform? What was that all about? Perhaps something would happen today; she could tell something was very different about today, yes! Yes! Something different was going to happen today!

Susan was jolted out of her internal frenzy of questions, the bell had stopped and with it, again irritatingly automatically, Susan found she had stopped eating, put down the spoon, and was sitting smartly upright with her hands resting on the desktop palms upwards, as was Matron’s rule, while the meal things were removed.

How she hated herself for this compliance and particularly for her own mindlessness, her own blind obedience to these stupid rules. What was happening to her? What were they doing to her? It was going to damage her in some way, she felt sure, if she were to stay here much longer, it was going to damage her mind, break her personality. That was it, she was sure, that must be it. They were trying to break her in some way. No, no, she had to calm down, that was ridiculous, what would it be for? Why would they be doing it? Why to her? No, it was ridiculous, wasn’t it?

The answer to any bar Susan herself, and possibly, Alison, her close cousin, would have been obvious. It would certainly have been so to anyone who knew Susan’s stepmother, even in passing let alone any lucky enough to be within her confidence. It would have been just as obvious to any fortunate enough to have been privy to even the earliest negotiations that had taken place all those months earlier. Negotiations and discussions between stepmother and prospective, and soon to be most influential, stepdaughter’s newest best friend, Dr Samantha Ecclestone.

Susan knew she had to pull herself together, Matron was talking, that was what was important, she had to listen to Matron, pay attention, Matron was important. It was not that she wasn’t listening, deep down inside she wouldn’t dare not to, it was just that sometimes words just seemed to wash over her, she just felt so tired, so, so...fuzzy, yes, that was it, fuzzy.

The last few mornings had found Susan progressively more reluctant to leave her bed. She had been feeling leaden, slow witted. She had been finding it difficult to concentrate of late, indeed difficult to think about anything at all for any length of time without finding that she had, presumably, drifted off in some way. Daydreaming? She couldn’t be certain, could never quite remember what she had been thinking about. Of late, more and more often she had found herself jolted back to reality by one event or another. Mealtimes, toilet times, bedtimes, came and went, each heralded by its individual bell. Each time it felt as if she had just been jolted awake, as if she had drifted away for a moment, just for a moment though. Surely she had only just had her last meal, surely it had only been a few minutes ago that she had last used the toilet, almost visibly shrinking under the humiliation of a nurse’s supervising and appraising eye, how long had it been? She just couldn’t quite remember. Susan would find herself blinking, sitting at the desk, presented with a meal, seemingly only minutes since the last. Her hunger, though, spoke to her of a different reality, a far longer period, a period that Susan was increasingly and, worryingly, less aware of.

She had seemed to have faded away, become lost in her own little world, outside of time, outside of the tedium of her surroundings. Her world? How much of it was really hers? Why could she not remember what she had been thinking about mere moments previously, those daydreams? Had she been sleeping? She could remember the sound of the surf, how sometimes she imagined it spoke to her, that they conversed like old friends. Occasionally she found herself reciting something, a kind of mantra recited in a sing-song voice like some half remembered nursery rhyme. It was something to do with being a good girl, but she couldn’t quite recall what, it left her as a half remembered and rapidly fading dream. And as is oft the way with dreams, the more one reaches forth, the more they recede, just fade away.

The day’s first meal consumed, Susan waited. Bells rang and stopped,’ toilet time’ came and went, Susan, as always, unable to perform in the full glare of witness, under appraising eye, finally allowed to return to her seat, her dire need remaining unresolved. She waited, expectantly but with an ignorant expectance. Something was going to happen today, she felt sure. Still she waited. Bells rang and stopped, a meal, the second since waking, eaten, more tasteless, mulchy, porridge...More waiting...waiting...waiting...

Stomach cramping, her need urgent, still she waited, holding on as long as humanly possible, if only the toilet bell would ring, right now she felt, she knew, she wouldn’t care how many nurses were lined up, watching, her, how unbearable the humiliation.

Bleep, bleep! The double bleep greeting her first step from her desk warned of the certain and impending disaster. The wailing alarm easily outraced her bowel movement and for an instant she didn’t care. The sheer relief! Then the realisation: She had triggered the alarm, she had to get back to her seat, sit still, let it reset, just had to, couldn’t stand it. Susan, mind befuddled by sedative and sound, desperate to get back to her seat, desperate to do anything that might bring silence.

She had no expectancy of the usual comfort most take for granted, they always took the wipes with them when they left, the nurses. Why? Why, did they always have to do that? Susan had no idea, just acceptance. She did the best she could under the circumstances, the best she could to clean herself up. All that was available was the absorbent pad in her knickers, it had worked before but it seemed doubtful that it would be sufficient this time. The result of her best efforts, the soiled towel, was stuffed down the toilet for what else could she do? Disgusted by the smell, the sight, she was desperate to be rid of it; clearly, leaving the pad on the edge of the toilet seat, as before, was not something to be contemplated on this occasion. This was far, far worse, far more humiliating. If only she could flush it, if only that damned alarm would stop she could think clearly. But would it flush away in any case? The toilet bowl seemed so small and, now in water, the already bulky towel was swelling. It was going to block up, she knew it, when it did flush it was going to overflow!

It was with shaking head that she eased up her knickers, resignation overcoming her. She wasn’t entirely clean, she had done the best, but she wasn’t entirely clean, she felt sure she wasn’t. Yet what else could she do? She felt the PVC cling tackily to her skin as she moved. Slipping, slimily, against peach-like buttocks, lubricated now, the seam sliding to and fro wetly between those cheeks, running back and forth across her anus with each movement as she wiggled back into her seat. She was back at that desk but now each fidget, each shift of weight was accompanied by a reminder of that filthy lubrication, a reminder of her shame-and of the deeper shame to come.

How long? She knew not. In its own time, unhurriedly, the alarm ceased its torturous wailing, in itself an eternity. And then there was only the physical discomfort, the mental anguish. Now devoid of their absorbent pad, deprived of absorbency, the impermeable plastic knickers had become practically awash with sweat, feminine secretions and much worse. Susan was only too aware of the steadily building heat, the slippery moisture, the clingy, sweaty, slime-caress of slick PVC against her most tender regions and the attendant itching. The thick towel, the pad, had made her feel like some diapered child or incontinent retard, that much was true, but right now she was ready to quite literally beg for a new knicker-liner. She no longer cared how bulky it was, how it made her feel. This period, then, this fidgeting, itching, time spent squirming wetly upon her seat, this was her second eternity.

How long? She knew not and then cared not; Matron had arrived. With her was the nice nurse, Susan’s nurse, the lovely nurse. Within moments of their entering the bell had started, the ‘toilet bell’, and Susan found herself positioned, with back to the little toilet pedestal, facing both Matron and the nurse. The nurse was carrying a white plastic tray upon which Susan could see a white kidney-shaped dish, a pair of smallish white plastic screw top containers, perhaps of around 250mL, a roll of toilet tissue and, right at the front, a trio of what Susan recognised as suppositories. Matron, standing hands on hips: “Toilet time, knickers down”.

They must have seen the toilet, the mess, Susan thought. They must have. The blockage! Yet they were clearly expecting her to relieve herself. What would happen? The bell would stop and the damn thing would flush, automatically, she thought. And then what? It was going to flood everywhere, she just knew it.

She felt like crying, felt like a naughty child. It was with some difficulty, then, that she regained at least some semblance of composure, consciously and continuously reminding herself that she was no child, that she was an eighteen-year-old woman, or at least that was how she wanted to think of herself.

It should be said that she had begun to question even this. Just how mature, how independent, was she, was anyone, really, at eighteen? After all, they were treating her like a child and she was feeling like a child. Why couldn’t she stand up for herself? Why couldn’t she just stand her ground, demand to see someone in charge, tell them she just wasn’t going to put up with this any longer? Somehow she just couldn’t, she knew it, hated herself for it. If only she had more confidence.

Not so very mature, not so independent after all, she thought to herself, then buried this thought behind a facade of carefully constructed denial, the repository of all teenage insecurities and anxieties. That this fortification was crumbling, was presently being expertly dismantled brick by brick, stone by stone, was undeniable.

A White Labyrinthine Promenade

She had been thinking of running out, retracing the passageway back the way they had originally brought her. She could backtrack from the shower room, after all that had been quite close to the main entrance. But had it been before or after they had passed through the first of the security grilles? She couldn’t quite recollect.

All this struggle, all this conjecture and all for nought. It was all academic; such an opportunity was obviously not going to be presented her. She was clearly being led in the entirely opposite direction from that by which she had originally arrived.

Having reached the end of the corridor the nurse walking ahead of them opened a door to their right, revealing yet another of those locked security gates beyond which, she could see, lay another long white and almost featureless passageway, windows on the left, cell-like doors to the right.

A key was produced from the bunch hanging from the nurse’s belt. Swiftly the gate was unlocked, the party passing through, the gate swinging shut with a faint click behind them as they went. Susan, trying to take in as much as possible of her surroundings, to orientated her self, swiftly noted that at no time had she had ever seen any sign of a staircase.

As far she could tell the only access to the floor they were on, whichever floor that might be, was by way of the lift. That lift required a key to operate it, the knowledge of some sort of security code and, in any case, was at this moment separated from her by two long corridors and now by not one but two locked, barred, penitentiary-styled security grilles. The thought struck her; they were leading her ever deeper into the complex, ever further from the outside world, her old life, ever further from reality, her reality. This was their reality, this institution, and she was becoming more deeply embedded, mired, in its ensnaring machinations with every step.

Beyond that first security grille they made several subsequent right turns, certainly more than four, one after another, each at the far end of an apparently identical passageway, totally white, totally straight, a sort of man-made whiteout that invalidated any judgment of distance. At the end of every corridor, it seemed, was a door through which waited a similar prison-like security gate. Each of these subsequent gates had been unlocked by Matron, taking up her most appropriate guise as jailer, the nurse having been relegated to the trio’s rear. Each gate, in turn, had shut behind them, locking automatically with a faint click, as they proceeded through, Matron at the front, girl following, nurse bringing up the rear: corridor after corridor, door after door, gate after gate, on and on, seemingly forever.

Always a right turn, or so it seemed, never a left. How could this be? It didn’t make sense. Susan was losing track, she knew she was; her impression was of a pointless tour around the sides of a square or oblong floor-plan. She tried to be logical, surely they would have come back to where they had started from, maybe they had, more than once; she had no idea it just all looked the same.

Susan was desperately trying to hang on to the tiniest thread of logic, her mind wheeling, churning and scratching for any morsel of understanding, of explanation. There could only be one explanation, she must be mistaken, must have missed a turn they had made somewhere. Yes that was it, it had to be, a turn to the left, probably more than one in fact, that she couldn’t quite remember for the some reason. She had become confused somewhere; it was her own failing, her own fault, her weakness or rather one of her weaknesses, her inability to concentrate.

How she wrestled with this thought, the implication that she could be so easily confused, could forget which way they had turned, so quickly, so completely. She struggled with the denial, that her memory could be so unreliable; there had to be some other explanation. In her mind’s eye she backtracked through all the twists and turns they had made since leaving her room, desperately searching for the ‘lost left’, the change of direction she had not accounted for, all the time struggling to keep track of the number of passageways traversed, the number of corners turned, security grilles negotiated. Surely, if she hadn’t made a mistake then, on more than one occasion, they must have passed her room and the other rooms in that corridor, those rooms with the numbers on the doors, the groups of numbers and letters like those on her room’s door, like those printed on her nightdress over her left breast. Yet she’d scrutinised each door they’d passed, yes there were many doors that had the holders, the holders that held the plates that in turn displayed the room numbers, yet none of those holders were occupied, none of the doors had the numbers and letters that might denote occupation.

In time her constant perusal appeared to irritate the nurse walking behind her, presumably because she would occasionally and momentarily pause to take stock. From time to time, from behind, there came a gentle urging push, the nurse’s hands resting momentarily on her shoulders and, whenever Susan appeared to hesitate too long, a sharp rebuke, “come along, look straight ahead girl”, and then, as she continued on her way, there would come a much gentler, “that’s a good girl”.

Then something different; Matron had stopped at a door that was, as far as Susan could judge, about halfway along a corridor, although under the strange ‘whiteout’ conditions the only thing she could be certain of was that they were not at the corridor’s end.

Susan had been lost in thought, had almost walked into Matron’s back. She had become totally preoccupied with self-doubt, troubled over her loss of trust in her own memory. So many times recently she had found herself losing track of days, of time. Thinking back she couldn’t seem to differentiate one day from the next. This inner doubt had been growing of late but if pressed she would have had to admit that, as with so many of her problems, she couldn’t quite seem to recall exactly when or where she had first started to feel this way, had first started to lose confidence in herself to such an extent.

The door was on their right and, as with all the doors she had seen lining these corridors, it was illuminated by the light from the window directly opposed to it on their left. Susan hadn’t even glanced at the windows they had passed, expecting, now, the disappointing, featureless, white frosted, expanse snuggled behind the protective covering of the ubiquitous white plastic grille. This window was no different nor did this door differ in any significant way from any of the others they had passed. All she could say for sure, from her experience so far, was that, whatever lay beyond, it wasn’t a room such as she had been staying in; there was no plate holder for the room number or identification number or whatever it was. It was just a plain white door, lying practically flush to the wall with but a single key hole, in which Matron was presently turning a key. Beyond that blemish it was as pristine as artic snow, almost part of the wall and lacking even the conventionality of a handle. Without comment Matron walked through, holding the door for Susan, the latter urged through in her turn by the nurse to her rear.

They were in yet another corridor, as white as all the others, but this time there were no windows to be seen on either side, just doors. Behind her Susan heard the door close, a barely audible click confirming its automatic relocking. At the far end of the corridor, on the right, she could see a row of five small white plastic chairs, low child-sized chairs of the type she had spent so long sitting on in her room, at that desk. Opposite this seating area was a white door.

“Sit down, that’s a good girl” the nurse’s patronising tone came from over her shoulder. Matron gestured so as to offer her the centre seat, the chair directly opposite the door. Awkwardly, the small seat seemingly so far down as to be little higher than a footstool, Susan seated herself as best she could, wiggling her mature curves past its arms and down onto the seat.

She was immediately struck by the embarrassing exposure imposed by her posture, the short skirt of her nightdress having ridden up revealing the semi-transparent crotch of the PVC knickers.

The low seating position resulted in her knees being somewhat higher than her bottom precluding the maintenance of anything like a ladylike disposition, her knees tending to swing outward as if they had a mind of their own, as if working in collusion to deepen her embarrassment. She realised that anyone coming out of the room opposite would immediately be greeted by a clear and unflattering view of what, quite frankly, any girl or woman of her age would prefer to keep hidden.

With that insight came shame and with that shame an unknowing premonition; a glimpse of a future wherein she was destined to become enlightened to the truth of Matron’s oft-used descriptive term ‘examination knickers’. The doubtful delights of the latter, at least, she had been spared on this occasion; but the time would come. Oh yes, the time would come and Matron would see to it that it would be not long in coming.

More sitting, more waiting. The nurse had left the way they had come, disappearing out through the door at the end of the corridor. Matron now stood with her back against the wall, on Susan’s left at the end of the row of chairs. On Susan’s right were two chairs then a small gap of perhaps two or three chair’s widths before the blank white end wall of the passage.

Left to her own devices again Susan’s mind began to wander, it was difficult to keep focused on anything in particular under these circumstances, there had been nothing to see, nothing to hear, nothing to do, for such a long time, how long? How long? She had been determined to get something done about it, demand to speak to someone in charge, this was her chance, she would sit here, practise in her mind exactly what she was going to say. It was just...well, she just didn’t seem able to keep her mind focused, kept drifting back to worrying about her problems, her confusion of late.

Her main problem, she thought, was herself; she lacked self-confidence, that’s what it was. She had been reluctant to admit it, even to herself, before, before she had come here. Indeed, once she would not have acknowledged even the faintest possibility that she had any problems, not psychological problems, not mental problems. But now, well, now...It was just that, with all the time she had had on her hands since her arrival, all that time with nothing to do but sit and reflect, she had become somehow more aware of her failings. Perhaps, she thought, she had never truly been quite well; the panic attacks, the agoraphobic attacks, her occasional stammer, perhaps all had been getting worse and she just hadn’t noticed. Had she really been in denial all this time? How could she have been so blind, so deluded? It just didn’t quite make sense and what was more, she couldn’t quite remember when it had all started. When had she first become aware?

Her immediate concern now, though, was that, with all this self-reflection, self-flagellation almost, she was becoming agitated and the more she worried, the more she struggled with her failing recall, wrestled with her self-questioning doubt, the more she could feel that panic rise.

A panic attack, just moments away, the cold sweat forming: This was her own fault, what had aunt Julia said, the others, the nurse, Dr Ecclestone? She was to avoid anxiety, avoid getting into this state of mind, this constant questioning, constant agonizing over decisions. She had to breathe deeply, think of nothing, let herself drift away, that’s what she had been told. It was best to avoid situations she couldn’t face up to, difficult decisions, open spaces, crowds...

Neither Sense nor Sensibility (A Girl in a Wheelchair)

The door immediately confronting her, that door, had opened; Susan was startled to find herself practically face to face with a girl. In truth, from Susan’s lowly-seated perspective this did involve the somewhat rapid elevation of her focus; she had found herself, embarrassingly, facing the girl’s crotch.

The wheelchair had emerged before Susan had quite registered that the door had opened. A white-uniformed nurse pushed from behind, carefully manoeuvring it across the threshold while, behind her in the room, a bespectacled, white coated, woman could just be seen standing to one side, holding open the door. For a moment Susan found herself at a loss to interpret what she was seeing.

Of the wheelchair itself there is little to relate except to say that it was entirely white, from the wheels, the spokes, the rims, to the curved moulded headrest. The colour scheme extended to the handles at the rear with which the nurse was expertly navigating the turn into the narrow corridor.

It is true that, upon careful consideration, the more observant might have noted one or two small additions, specialised characteristics, that might have seemed to differentiate it from the average work-a-day hospital wheelchair but even these, the various medical restraint anchor points, were quite discreet, particularly, as now, when not in use and in any case were not necessarily inappropriate in the context of a psychiatric hospital.

It is perhaps of no surprise, then, that Susan should not have considered it particularly noteworthy. Aesthetically, the most outstanding features were those in absentia, the lack of chrome trimmings, the usual black handle grips, perhaps black or grey tyres. Its occupant on the other hand, the girl, was a different matter entirely. At a casual glance, superficially childlike and yet there was her size, the overt voluptuous maturity of her figure, almost exaggeratedly womanly, feminine curves, maturely developed curving hips filling the seat, knees pressed out against armrests, a notably defined clinched waistline above which the aggressive high-breasted melon-thrust spoke of artificial suspension taken to an ridiculous extreme.

Indeed, for most observers this latter observation would have most rapidly and aptly crystallised, for surely even the most insensitive would have been hard-pressed to deny the inspiration to ridicule. But then there was the childish dress and yet even this juxtaposed with certain idioms of more mature fashion, inappropriate on a girl that Susan, after due consideration, considered might be perhaps in her late teens or early twenties at best. The image was perhaps overly mature, perhaps inappropriately sexual under these circumstances and strangely anachronistic, like some left-over from a bygone age, while, all the time, remaining undeniably institutional.

For Susan’s part, It must be said that her first impressions had been somewhat coloured by her unusual vantage point. In fact her very first sight had been of the view up the girl’s short skirt; tan stockings, old-fashioned, broad white, suspenders contrasting strongly against the dark welts and, plainly visible beneath the sheen of the thin white PVC or latex, Susan could not be certain, bloomer legs. Beyond even that, she had momentarily glimpsed, even while shifting her embarrassed gaze, the shiny, pearl-white fabric of a tightly stretched crotch panel, a distinct shadowed valley marking the puckered invagination at its centre.

Hurriedly looking up, her gaze had momentarily met the girl’s eyes, a fleeting, truncated contact, terminated almost as quickly as made. The girl, in her turn, equally rapidly, had averted her gaze, a spreading shy flush painting her rounded and well fed cheeks an apple red even as the tingling burning sensation washing across the surface of Susan’s skin had informed of her own mirroring complexion.

In that moment, despite its brevity, Susan had received the impression of blue eyes, the contact too fleeting to be certain, and an impression, too, of something else, something disturbing, something missing. Yes, that was what it was, something that was missing from that gaze, something that had been announced by its absence, even in that fleeting moment. Those eyes, the windows of the soul, yet that was exactly what they lacked, what was missing, sparkle, soul, life; it had been a gaze as blank as the frosted corridor windows, a gaze reflecting the institutional white walls and carpets. The way that girl’s gaze had shifted, so automatically, so rapidly, as one might turn from unbearable horror as in terror, this Susan had found the most disturbing. The girl had seemed terrified of making eye contact as if, perhaps, suffering some dark, debilitating, extremity of shyness, deeply withdrawn perhaps, surely indicative of some sort of psychological imbalance.

Recovering somewhat from her initial surprise and embarrassment Susan hungrily ran her eyes over the seated figure before her; there was more here than that all-pervading whiteness, there was relief to be had here, relief from the crippling white monotonous numbness about her.

Before her sat an apparition very unlike everything else, an islet of green and white, of shadow, of black and of tan and, yes, even blue, the blue of the sky of the sea she cared not which. Perhaps she hadn’t realised just how much the bland institutional surroundings had affected her but now she could barely control herself, control the hunger, she was devouring greedily every small detail of the image before her, a girl in a wheelchair, a psychiatric patient, a sad sight, an institutionalised girl in a wheelchair in an institutional dress, the most important, most interesting thing she had ever seen in her life.

Susan was desperately trying to take in, to note, every detail as if her life depended on some future, accurate, recall of this instant. Before her the girl sat passively, her nurse awkwardly manoeuvring the wheelchair into the corridor. From beneath a plain, green and white striped, bonnet, that would not have seemed amiss if detailed in some dark Dickensian tome, emerged two tightly plaited, glossy, jet-black, pigtails. The tightness of the platting and the shortness of the latter conspired to produce an awkward lie, each pigtail tending to an angle away from the side of the girl’s head before curving upwards just before the point at which a broad ribbon held the end in a peculiarly oversized green and white striped bow. Light fell playfully about those ribbons, forming pools, whirls and shimmers wherever the fabric curved and folded, the sheen suggestive of a man-made fabric, washable, practical and institutional. The colour, pattern and sheen were echoed throughout the girl’s bonnet and dress, suggesting the same fabric had been used for both and again reflecting the institutional emphasis on the twin values of practicality and cheapness.

Whatever the thinking that lay behind this costume, it was clear that little concession had been made to the sensibilities of the wearer. The only concession to style, if one could call it that, was the large, rounded, collar, an extravagance of fabric presented in a rather farcical oversized travesty of a ‘Peter Pan’ style being perhaps most reminiscent of a 19th-century, child’s, sailor suit.

In the context of a private hospital, one might perhaps be hard-pressed to justify such detailing of styling, let alone the bonnet, as purely functional. One might argue, also, that the embroidery on the left breast pocket was an equally unlikely extravagance, although this at least might just have been justified on the grounds of organisational practicalities and identification. This latter stated: St Mary’s, psychiatric wing in a large, curling, coal-black, script across the top of the pocket, immediately below which, and occupying most of the centre of the pocket, was embroidered, 24 C, in large black block characters.

Stylistically the dress itself seemed to Susan to encompass some features of a school uniform summer dress she had once seen in an old photograph, something worn by girls from a private and very exclusive boarding school in some far off, bygone age. Other features, the fabric, the glassy buttons, the cut, the belt, the latter being of a similar fabric to the dress and fastening at the front with two buttons, were more at home on a 1960s dress-style overall, the like of which she had once seen on television, featuring in an old programme about a prison somewhere, she seemed to remember, and even then worn by a group of older women inmates.

On reflection, she decided, that was exactly what it looked like, a prison uniform, yet, again, not quite, sort of mid-way between a prison uniform and a very strict, very old-fashioned, school uniform. Indeed, a more institutional garb it would be difficult to imagine. Throughout the dress was striped, bottle green and white. The sleeves were long with buttoned cuffs, the shoulders were slightly puffed and of a style that in a far-off time might have been described as mutton chop. The bodice was close fitting, noticeably so, and, belying its institutional origins, could easily have been tailor-made for the girl such was the closeness of the fit; not tight exactly, just apparently well-tailored and closely-fitted to the figure.

Even to the unpractised eye it would have been obvious that the girl’s underwear included some sort of foundation garment, perhaps a corset, some sort of surgical corset Susan decided. Yes that would make sense, the only really plausible explanation in fact.

This latter observation was consistent with the most glaring oddity, one that strangely Susan had initially missed in the hurried, embarrassed, shifting of her gaze. Now, having recovered somewhat and systematically, almost analytically, perusing the sight before her, Susan’s eyes finally alighted upon the leg callipers. As if to confirm the girls obvious disability, ugly, old-fashioned looking and reminiscent of pictures Susan had once seen of polio victims in the 1930s, these fitted from the girl’s ankles right up to a point just beyond the girl’s knees and included a hinge at the knee joint.

Her gaze following on down to the girl’s feet Susan saw that the girl was wearing fairly conventional footwear, conventional that is had she been a girl of around ten years old rather than in her late teens or early twenties.

Bottle green patent ‘Mary Janes’, the colour to match the dress, had been realised in a rather cheap looking glossy, reflective material, perhaps plastic, Susan thought, and again were suggestive of an institutional emphasis on practicality. The shoes fastened with a T-bar strap arrangement, most typical of a child’s school shoe, by way of a contrasting white buckle that, again, was of an appearance suggesting plastic of some description.

And then she was gone, but not before Susan had made one final observation. The wheelchair turning away, its occupant had turned her head, subtly, ever so slightly, to shyly glance at Susan with eyes at the extreme of their leftward travel. Again the two girls’ eyes had met for a split second, Susan registering...what exactly? Fear? Pleading? Susan was sure only in that it had been disturbing. And then...

“24C, what do you think you’re doing girl?” The girl’s nurse had spoken so unexpectedly sharply, so, angrily, that Susan had almost leapt out of her seat. By way of extreme contrast, and equally startling for that, the girl’s voice, when it came, was tiny, as if in apology for its own existence, the reply barely audible, just barely understandable, a stammering muffled babble. “O,o,o, orrriiy u,u, urtth”. It was with some difficulty, and even then only with hindsight, that Susan was able to interpret “sorry nurse”.

There were no answers to be had here, just more questions to ponder. The girl was surely retarded or disturbed in some way and was equally clearly disabled, so why were they treating her in that manner? Why had they dressed her like that, in that ridiculous manner? Did that nurse really have to speak to her like that, all the girl had done was glance over? And that look in her eyes, that strange brew of fear and pleading, what did it all mean? Then they were gone, girl, wheelchair and nurse disappearing through the door at the corridor’s end, Susan looking after, watching the door closing behind them.

With their departure had ended, abruptly, Susan’s train of thought, or rather she had had the thread cut for her. There had come a sharp, rude, interruption: “43C, what do you think you’re doing, girl? It has got nothing to do with you! Look straight ahead. The doctor will see you in a moment and she won’t want you wasting her time so you had better pay attention.” Matron’s voice, as always, had been authoritative, commanding. Without thinking Susan had turned away, had returned her attention to the door before her and, as so often recently, her unquestioning compliance and both annoyed and humiliated her.

She waited, her irritation rapidly approaching rage, her complexion florid with an almost irrational mix of anger and embarrassment. Matron had spoken to her in exactly the same way as that nurse had addressed the retarded girl. It hadn’t be necessary then and it was unnecessary now, completely unnecessary, what was worse was that she had done exactly as she had been told, what was wrong with her? They were talking to her as if she was a naughty schoolgirl and she was going along with it with little hesitation and even less protest.

Then the door, the doctor’s door she was soon to discover, opened again... “43C, up you get”, Matron again. Just for a moment, rising stiffly from the little chair, Susan felt like turning and lashing out yet found herself walking towards the waiting doctor as if in a dream, or should that be nightmare?

The nurse was guiding her with an arm around her shoulders, a semi-hug that seemed to instantly calm her and yet, simultaneously, sap her will still further, if such had been possible at that moment.

The Futility of the Familiar

All the way here, well certainly from the point at which they had arrived at that door in the outside corridor, when she had believed it to be of the doctor’s room, before she had realised that it actually led to yet another corridor, this corridor in fact, her determination had been growing with every step. She was determined, now more than ever, that she was going to get something done about this, her treatment. This was it, this was her chance, she was going to damn well complain, get something done about the staff and their attitude towards her, get something done about Matron in particular. Most of all she was going to get out of here, resign from the programme, from whatever experiment she was supposed to take part in, no matter how simple, how non-intrusive they might promise them to be, no matter how friendly and ‘nice’ the researchers might turn out.

Now she tried to gather her resolve, prepare for the argument ahead. If anything the way she had just been spoken to, the way she had just seen that disabled and retarded girl treated, had made her more determined than ever. She just didn’t want to know any more, she was going to go home, even if it did mean spending the next few months with her bloody stepmother! Anything would be better than this. A few months living with her stepmother and then she would be off to university, albeit without the funding that she would have acquired had she stayed the course here, taken part in their damned study. She knew, now, that she just couldn’t stand it any longer, she just couldn’t. Besides anything else there was the sheer bloody boredom for one thing and those bloody bells, over and over, and being treated like some disturbed child in an asylum or something...

... Why had she burst into tears? Why? She wasn’t quite sure; it had just happened, that was all, just as the door had been opened, just as the white coated woman had stood aside to grant her access, just as the friendly smile had spread across her face, the simultaneous gesture of invitation made, that invitation coloured with an almost tangible air of authority.

Susan had been struck by the woman’s large dark eyes glinting, sparkling, behind her white rimmed glasses. A white headdress adorned her head in a manner similar to that of the nurses; her hair was covered in its entirety bar one small wisp, revealing the doctor as a brunette, lying nonchalantly across her forehead and curling just above the fine aquiline nose. It had not been the sight of the doctor per se though. No, it had been the room beyond. Not that there was anything particularly sinister about it, quite the contrary; it was largely bare, sparsely furnished at best, an almost sensorially barren white desert.

White, everything was white; white carpet, white walls. An imposing white desk dominated the room’s centre behind which lay a large, white, high-back chair. Beyond the latter a white frosted-glass window crouched back behind the usual white plastic grille and filled the space with its ethereal mist of light. No there was nothing unusual, remarkable nor outstanding, about this room. But that was just it, deep down, subconsciously, she had been expecting... what? What exactly?

There might have been a desk of antique mahogany, oak panelling, shelves of learned tomes, their leather bindings glowing in reds and browns? There could have been golden sunlight flooding through a window, the view beyond stunningly-framed; the hospital grounds, the trees and grass, the greens and the blues? Some colour? That was it! Some colour, something to look at, something to think about. Anything! Anything! Anything but this, this...monotony.

Deep down Susan could sense that further disappointments, further defeats, were destined today. A dark realisation, a slow creeping thin dread, the certainty crashing down on her, squeezing the spirit from her, to run like juice from an overripe peach, and this even before she stood behind the small white plastic child’s chair cringing before that huge oversized desk, even before Matrons firm guiding hand pressed down upon her right shoulder, even before she had been firmly guided down onto that lowly seat, the doctor simultaneously gesturing a wordless invitation to be seated. Surely before long only the husk would remain to show where a vivacious young woman had once flowered.

Susan found herself sat low before the doctor’s looming white desk, its top now only little below her head height. She was now obliged to look up in order to face the doctor, who, having taken her seat on the far side, now regarded her with dark, appraising, eyes across the white featureless expanse. Susan, ungainly-seated, could feel her confidence draining from her like the finest silver-sand through gnarled and twisted arthritic fingers. The low chair enforced the assumption of the exposed posture with which she was becoming all-too-familiar; knees high and spread wide, the near-transparent crotch of her PVC knickers stretched tightly and forming a window into her, not so private, world of humiliation, her brief latex nightdress riding up to the very top of her thighs. Even the absorbent pad of her usual incontinence bloomers would have been welcomed now, even that oppressive diaper-humiliation would have been preferable to this awful feeling of utter exposure.

The thin, moulding, plastic covering, emphasising rather than concealing, was worse in some ways than even total nudity would have been. Indeed, nudity would at least have allowed her a natural figure, a natural, normal, bust line, not this freakish melon-breasted appearance; the blatant distended rock-hard thimbles of her nipples, pressing out into the thinly stretched latex fabric, the pink, gently-throbbing, breast fronts, her areolae, as flushed as her cheeks, gifting a fine rose-painted embellishment to her humiliation. Looking up at the doctor, her self-confidence ebbing away with the outgoing tide, the surf dragging back and forth her hopes and dreams, little by little denuding the shore, she felt the tears come again, a gentle almost silent sob. Before us emotion whirls and eddies where soon there will be only featureless sea.

She was aware that the door had been closed behind her, she was also aware of the continued presence of both the nurse and Matron close-by. She had expected to have been left alone with the doctor, at least at some point in the proceedings. With the benefit of privacy, and in confidence, she felt she might just have retained enough resolve to speak up, complain about her treatment, complain about Matron’s attitude, her domineering bullying. This scenario she had rehearsed in her internal dialogue, the speech practised until reduced to a series of clearly and cleverly worked out sound-bites.

Now, though, with the continued presence of her nemesis, she was discovering her resolution to be a little too dependent on her setting of the scene, her silence now as much testament to a lack of contingency as to psychological disadvantage. And so she sat passively, waiting, flanked by the standing, imposing, figures of both nurse and Matron while, before her, the doctor sitting back, relaxed, confident, conversed with her staff, looking past her, through her, as if invisible, transparent and of no account.

The doctor’s attitude was clearly transmitted and equally clearly received; she was talking about her not to her. “So, this must be 43C, I understand there have been issues regarding compliance, more specifically, problems with sample collection?” Periodically the woman glanced down at her notes, adjusted her glasses and turned pages beyond Susan’s view; the occasional glimpse of the blank underside of a document her only reward for the diligence of her gaze.

“Yes doctor” Matron’s voice, contrite and yet as authoritative as, even here, even in this other intimidating woman’s presence. “She has repeatedly failed to provide faecal samples in particular, at least at the requisite times.” She went on “... and today, for the second time, she has managed to block the toilet”.

The doctor interjected, clearly irritated: “How so?”.

“The same way as last time, by stuffing her incontinence towel down it. Of course when it flushed it overflowed, flooded everywhere, a complete mess I’m afraid.”

The doctor visibly bristled, then, sighing resignedly. “Perhaps there are behavioural or psychological problems present. What happens at toilet time, do we get any samples?” If anything, if at all possible, the doctor was displaying even less acknowledgement of Susan’s presence. Behind her, out of her eye line, Matron shrugged slightly and, otherwise maintaining her professional detached demeanour, she continued with her report:

“Generally at toilet time she either can’t or simply won’t perform, although she has managed to provide a few samples of her urine.”

The doctor leant forward slightly in her chair, interlocking her fingers together a she did so. “Well, it must be said that we have experienced difficulties throughout this study with the scheduling of sample collection, partly arising from the requirement to collect samples at fixed intervals but, with most patients, it seems to have been the supervised toilet use that has been the major issue.” She went on: “Have you explained to her that close medical supervision is absolutely essential if we are to ensure that the experimental protocols are adhered to correctly, that the samples are collected regularly, at the correct intervals and under the correct conditions.”

“Yes doctor I have. I can understand her reluctance to perform her toilet under supervision but behaviour such as she has exhibited today I can only describe as wilful disobedience. I can’t help but wonder whether she is really suitable for this study, I get the impression that it is not what she expected. Indeed, I get the feeling that she would rather leave the study altogether.”

Susan could hardly believe what he was hearing. Firstly, surely anyone would object to being watched while using the toilet. Secondly, Matron was blatantly lying, nothing had been explained to her in any sense let alone anything pertaining to experimental protocols and sample collection.

She had only been told that she would have to wait for a few days before joining a study group and being interviewed by the researchers. That would have been the point at which she would have expected to have been told about experimental protocol, perhaps be given consent forms to sign, that sort of thing. Thirdly, and most surprisingly, Matron appeared to be conspiring to send her home, exactly what she wanted most. Susan felt excitement building, a childish excitement, the- night-before-Christmas. Strangely, she felt almost like giggling, elated, they were going to send her home!

A lot of what was said from that point on had washed over her but now she saw the doctor, stooping slightly, retrieve something from a desk drawer, she heard the faint soft swish of the drawer gliding on its nylon runners, and a white kidney-shaped dish was placed on the desktop before her. Susan sniffed, she couldn’t help herself but there was suddenly a pungent odour in the air and her senses were keen, acute, having been ironically sharpened by the dullness of routine. She felt herself blush deeply at the recognition, that is to say, deeper, as throughout a hot flustered flush had continuously occupied her teary countenance. The odour had come as a slap around that pretty face; even from her low position she could see enough to recognise the yellow-brown stained and bloated form of her incontinence pad from earlier in the day.

The doctor glanced down at it then looked up, still staring straight through the transparent girl before her. “I have examined her stools indirectly on both occasions that this has happened. This is her latest issue, retrieved by maintenance, and with quite some complaint I might add. It looks to me as if simple constipation may be her problem, at least to some degree.” She glanced down at her notes before continuing: “I see that she has only passed stools on these two occasions so far which tends to confirm my suspicions. The smell is quite diagnostic too, the pungency, quite offensive”. At this the doctor gave a sniff.

If it had at all been possible Susan would have surely blushed deeper still, as it was all she could do was shift her weight and fidget awkwardly. Despite herself, despite her most stoic attempts at re-composure, she found herself gently weeping again. Behind her, on her right, she heard a soft voice, the nurse’s voice; “shh, it’s all right child”. Susan became aware of soft fingers gently stroking the nape of her neck, softly, rhythmically. This, the first acknowledgement since she had walked into that room that she even existed, somehow it only seemed to be making things worse; she had been trying to compose herself, to pluck up the courage to speak out, but now even this train of thought was being rhythmically broken, the thread being taken from her with each stroke of those gentle fingers. Soothing, reassuring, yes, of course, yet seemingly robbing her of rational thought. She was gradually relaxing now, finding it easier to let her eyes close, the heavy lids already drooping, so easy to float along with the stream, just sit and listen, wait to be told what to do. She wouldn’t have to decide, wouldn’t have to make a decision, wouldn’t have to face up to her lack of courage, her lack of self-confidence, she could just be a good girl. After all that Matron had had to say the doctor was clearly going to send her home anyway, she could just relax, drift away... The conversation continued around her like an enveloping cloud of drowsily droning honey bees on a summer’s afternoon, just voices, discussing her, discussing her future.

Somehow, Susan pulled herself back into the present, back into the room, forced herself to address her situation. Something had jarred on her numbed senses: The doctor was talking.

“... I noticed a rather diagnostic odour in connection with the urine soaked towel that she produced earlier also. I believe you have voiced concerns that she may have a vaginal infection, Matron?”

“Yes, doctor.”

The doctor scribbled something on a notepad before continuing: “Well, I’ll examine her in a moment anyway, but nevertheless I think it best that she be started on suppositories for her constipation and I will prescribe a vaginal suppository douche as a precaution. I have seen infection show up as a complication of long-term wearing of incontinence pants in some patients, a necessary evil I’m afraid.”

What was all this about? Why did she need suppositories, they were about to send her home, surely they were? The doctor was still speaking “... I believe her uniform has arrived, Matron?”

“Yes doctor, I have to apologise but apparently there were some complications, something to do with her measurements, I gather she has put a bit of weight on since she was measured, mostly around the buttocks and the bosom by the looks of things, anyway, Mrs Simmons has had to let out the bodice and let down the skirt hem slightly. She said she’d rather that than let out the seams so as to retain a good snug fit around the girl’s hips. A slightly larger corselet has also had to be ordered, adding to the delay. The delivery arrived only just before her appointment was due so I’m afraid there was just not time enough to get her changed in time, sorry doctor.”

“Yes, yes, quite understandable, Matron, but I’d like you to make sure she is put in uniform as soon as she is returned to her room”

“Yes, of course, doctor.”

Susan was just stunned, her mind reeling, what was all this stuff about uniforms again? What uniform? What were they talking about?, What the point of any of it, she was going home, wasn’t she?

For the first time the doctor’s gaze met Susan’s although she was still obviously addressing her staff, at least at this point. “I don’t think we need send her home just yet, I doubt she really wants to give up this opportunity.” There came a slight pause and then, now definitely addressing the girl: “... do you sweetheart?”

This was Susan’s chance and yet she felt lost for words, she grasped for a sentence but before she could say anything the doctor went on, her attention now fully returned to her staff: “I don’t think we need give up on her just yet, from my experience, once we have her in uniform compliance will come more naturally to her. Of course I will continue to monitor her progress but, depending on the reports I receive, I am considering her suitability to join the ‘strict-education’ group or possibly even the ‘workhouse’ group.”

What?? Susan had heard enough, what was this?. This was it, she had to make a stand now. She wanted no more of this nonsense. “Now look here!” Well that at least was how she had intended her first strike to sound; somehow it was not quite how those present perceived it.

“P,p,ppplease dddoctor I,I I wwwant, I wwwant t, t,to ggggo hhhh...” She trailed off, couldn’t quite get it out, was stopped in her stuttering tracks, startled, as, without even the slightest acknowledgement, without comment, the doctor rose and, turning on her heel, left the room by a side door that Susan had not been aware of up until now. In short, she was left sitting literally dumbfounded and open-mouthed. A voice came from over her left shoulder, sharp, penetrating, snapping her out of her dumb confusion; Matron’s voice. “Up you get, girl” Matron, clearly irritated, her words delivered with punishing venom.

The First Blizzard of Eternal Winter; the Journey Home

The final fragments, the remnants of failed resolve, tumbled with fresh tears to be felt physically as might the last shards of the pane shattered by some pebble, carelessly tossed, seemingly without forethought yet damaging just the same. She started to stand yet felt faint, the snowdrift carpet rising up to greet the white clouded ceiling forming a sudden, unexpected and uncertain, horizon. Caring arms had rescued her, her fall averted by nurse and Matron both.

She was in the short corridor now, just outside the doctor’s office, where for so long she had waited, where she had encountered that strange girl in the wheelchair. A jangle of keys and she was back in the main corridor, Matron leading the way, the nurse to the rear, close behind Susan and positioned slightly to one side so as to guide the still softly weeping girl with a comforting arm about her shoulders.

“Shhh, shhh, hush child” the nurse’s eternally softly spoken West-Country lilt. So soon it had begun its soft velveteen bandaging, layer upon layer of the soft draping fabric protectively, malignly, enwrapping her wounds, swaddling her thoughts...and doing... what else to her?

It was doing something, that singsong voice, something she shouldn’t allow, something she should try hard to fight; she knew that now, she felt that now. But then a long gentle finger languidly wandered down the nape of her neck, then again, then again, and again.

They were still walking and yet she was no more able to maintain a logical train of thought then she had in the doctor’s office, a thought would form, a thread would be followed and then... there would come that gentle touch and she’d have to start over, start afresh. “It’s all right; you will soon be back in your little room all nice, safe and sound. You’ve just been a silly girl, that’s all, such a silly girl “.

Until that point the only sound had been the rhythmic swish of Matron’s uniform skirt swinging to and fro against her nylon-stockinged calves. Now Susan found her gaze fixed on that hem, found it strangely fascinating, the white hem rocking to and fro, to and fro, juxtaposed against those tan seamed stockings. That was just it, the contrast; here was something more than just white upon white upon white. And then there was that finger, trailing its innocent path from hairline to collar and over again, innocent and yet so perfectly synchronised to the roll of those well shaped buttocks before her, the swing of that skirt hem. Once commanding little more than a cursory glance or, at most, an appreciation of a shapely feminine figure or of a well formed calf, to Susan or indeed any denizen of the clinic this was tantamount to sensory overload, totally fascinating, hypnotic.

Now the spell had been partially broken, although Susan’s gaze was still glassy, un-shifting, locked, held in part now by little glints and flashes of tiny, yet intense, shooting stars of colour. Greens, reds, blues, all originating from a simple button fastening a nurse’s uniform cuff, flashes of light from just above the dainty, well-manicured, hand. The nurse’s arm now hung around the girl’s shoulder, quite casually from a first glance and yet in truth there was some design to this positioning. Had not similar care been lavished upon the multi-faceted design of the button itself. Faceted, as were its matching siblings, one upon the other cuff, one fastening her collar at her throat and one positioned as the last button of her skirt at the hem, to reflect light in diamond-bright-rainbow hues. The face of the nurse’s fob watch and the clasps upon her belt had had a similar treatment; each reflected light with every movement, each circulated a swirling, gyrating kaleidoscopic pattern of the purest laser-like hues. Only that buttoned cuff mattered here though, they walked, the nurse talked on, ever so gently, and equally gently that dainty hand and cuff rolled to and fro, to and fro, an exquisite swathe of colour reflecting rhythmically in the corner of the girl’s eye.

“Yes a very silly girl, aren’t you?”

“B,b,bbbut.” Susan managed a rather pathetic attempt to interject, still wanting answers despite forever being told not to ask questions, desperately trying to put together some sort of logical argument, even if restricted to her own internal dialogue, desperately trying to think past the soothing interruptions of those insistently caressing fingers, the fiery flashes of light that more and more locked her gaze.

“No talking!” Matron’s voice sharply rebuked her, the woman deeming it unnecessary to turn around to address her charge; such was her confidence in her command.

The nurse whispered now, more gently than ever, her breath sweetly playing around the girl’s ear, prompting a shiver to run down her spine: “Now, now, there you go again. You know the rules here by now, 43C.” The nurse went on almost as if she had not heard Matron, as if Susan and she were the only ones present. “I know Matron was annoyed with you but it’s really not her fault you know, the doctor is so very insistent on the experimental protocol being followed to the letter. It is very important, any disturbance could invalidate the results obtained from the various experiments; you wouldn’t want that would you 43C? You wouldn’t want to let everyone down? Because that’s what you would be doing, you know. You wouldn’t want to let me down, now would you?”

Somehow Susan knew she was supposed to answer: “N,n no n nurse”. Her reward came instantly as one must always reward obedience if one is training any animal let alone a young woman:

“That’s a good girl”. The nurse went on gently: “You see controls are very important in scientific studies and part of the precautions taken against different conflicting effects is to ensure that the subjects are all treated exactly the same way and that there are no outside influences. That is why we have the no-talking rule and that stipulation includes only ever answering questions, you do not ask questions, ever. You do not speak unless spoken to first, it’s very simple, you know the rules don’t you 43C?” Again Susan knew to answer. “Y yes n nurse” And again came her reward. “That’s such a good girl; you are being a good girl.”

“Have you noticed how your stammer isn’t nearly so bad when you’re being a good girl, sweetheart?

“Yes, nurse”

“Oh you are being a good girl, such a good girl. You trust me, sweetheart, you believe in me, you have to trust and believe in your nurse. All good girls should. You know that, don’t you?”

“Yyes nurse”. Susan could say nothing else, couldn’t concentrate at all now, all she knew was that they were walking steadily down a corridor that went on forever, a beautiful and eternally white corridor, her gaze locked by the swinging hem to the front and the flashing swirling rainbow orbiting in her peripheral vision. Beautiful and fascinating words filled her mind, the nurse’s kind words. Such kind words, so kind, so gorgeous that that they, themselves, as if through some twisted synesthesia, were striped and spangled with intensely stroboscopic, throbbing, colours. Words shaded by ever-shifting rotating spoked patterns, reminiscent of the beautiful face of the nurse’s fob-watch at bedtime. Always she would be soothed off to a fluffy deep sleep by the nurse’s kind words and her pretty fob watch with nary a murmur of resistance.

“You know the rules, 43C”, she again insisted, “don’t you?”

Susan heard a voice reply as if in a dream: “Yes nurse”, only vaguely aware that it was her own, let alone stammer-free.

“You broke the rules by speaking to the doctor, it made you very unhappy, it has made Matron very unhappy and it has made me very unhappy, your nurse, your lovely, lovely nurse.

You don’t want to be unhappy, you are so eager to please and yet you have failed, you have broken the rules and it’s making you so, so unhappy, bringing on one of your panic attacks, you don’t want that to happen, do you sweetheart?”

“No nurse, ppp please hhhelp mmme” Susan was becoming increasingly agitated; there was that growing feeling of panic again. One of her ‘attacks’ was coming on, she knew it but there was nothing she could do about it. Then there came the helplessness, then the awful, utter, despair; she needed help, desperately needed help...

“Shhh, it’s all right, I’m here, your nurse is here, your lovely, lovely nurse is here with you. We are almost at your room now, you will feel safe in your room, but to really, really make everything better again, for you to really feel better, you must apologise to Matron and me, particularly to Matron. You must tell her how sorry you are otherwise your panic attack will just worsen again and then you would have to decide what to do and you know how hard you find it to make decisions. It makes you feel so panicky to have to make decisions. Remember the waves of panic you used to feel trying to decide what to wear, staring at your wardrobe, the room starting to spin? That is why you have to do as you’re told, say what you have to say, wear what we are going to give you to wear, you know that is true don’t you sweetheart?”

“Yes nurse.”

“You are such a good, good girl”.

Matron’s key lightly jangled, a door opened and they were back in her room. She was all safe and sound, tucked up in her little cell.