The secret Chopin society

The Secret Chopin Society.

Part One: Fauny End

I

Abock was really mad. The orderly with bright green eyes told me. He
would sit motionless for hours on end then erupt in wild fury
singing/screaming Beethoven symphonies. The orderly, or Greenie as he
was known, held my arm tightly as we passed through the dayroom with
its low-slung fluorescent lights and tatty armchairs. A few patients
where passing time with scrabble (or trying to, as most where
inebriated to the gills on sedatives, most couldn't pass four letter
words as a result). Everyone was smoking, and the ceiling was a pasty
yellow, but it was the smell that upset me the most. If you combined
all the smells of all our bodily functions it is close to that! The
room was about eighty feet by twenty-five and we where heading to the
nurses station. Through a strong wooden door was a dimly lit corridor
with several cells each side of it. A strong smell of shit leapt at my
nose. I reached but Greenie yanked my arm abruptly. He was only small
but had some strength and I felt as though I should react.

"Fucking watch it!"

He stopped, and stared into my eyes with a piercing gaze that all most
knocked me over.

He whispered "Behave and they'll give you much more pleasant
drugs"

I held out my arm and off we went. A few more corridors and the smell
relented probably as this was near the admin part of the hospital.
Greenie told me to sit and he disappeared. I was outside Dr Gullen's
office. On the wall opposite where pictures of mountains and lakes. The
corridor was carpeted and a woman kept poking her head out of a door
further up the corridor.

"Bit fucking nosey aren't u?"

She quickly scuttled back into her hole. Then Greenie and another
starch jacket came wooping out the room.

"Don't you dare talk to admin like that, fucking shit bag"

Greenie then pushed my head against the wall and squeezed my neck. Dr
Gullen emerged.

"Ok, that's enough ladies"

I smirked. He looked stereotypical of a 1950's shrink with a bald
patch, white coat and dark rimmed specs. He carried this on in his lair
by clasping his hands together while leaning back in his chair just
staring at me then glancing over my notes. I looked over his shoulder
at his bookshelf stuffed with Frued and Jung literature. I
chuckled.

"Assaulting a minor isn't funny Jack."

"He through a fucking book at me!"

"Doesn't matter"

"So you're saying that I can't have any respect?"

"Yep" he paused and stood up. "This is the twenty first century Jack.
Your not allowed to touch a minor at all"

"I only pushed him into the wall, then the bastard stabbed me"

"Doesn't matter"

"What happens now then?"

Gullen let out a lengthy sigh and ruffled through my notes again.

"You hear voices don't you Jack?"

"I don't know"

"Come on Jack! Your colleagues have reported seeing you talking to
yourself, having conversations with someone who isn't there"

He reclined his chair and folded his arms as if to say 'get out of that
one then'.

As I tried to reply he blurted, "and why the aggressive attitude
towards my staff? I don't understand. You headmaster reports 'A quiet
retiring soul. Seems to lack confidence almost cut off from
reality.'

"Must the new drugs I'm on" I shrugged.

"Oh yes, Parnate. Could explain it, I suppose, being as it is a mild
stimulant"

This felt horrific. A burning pain started to swell in my chest right
down to my bowels. My headmaster, I liked that. The bloke is a tosser
and he knows it. Only employing me because of a government grant given
if specialist departments are set up in deprived schools. And believe
me Wanton High is the fucking worst. Teaching music to a set of
malnourished, vile creatures (mainly from the Duncan Wanton estate) is
enough to encourage anyone into a life of madness. There are more
social workers per 100 feet square then any other part of the country,
so the joke/myth goes! It is a demonising, flesh wrinkling orgy of
vacuous fat single mothers with purple hair and bulging benefit
books.

"Don't I have a right to defend myself?"

"Your delusional to,,,,what am I going to do?"

How on earth is that delusional? I expected a man of intelligence to
comprehend my situation. I'm meant to be the one who is crazy!

"Well Jack, I'm going to prescribe you haldol 20mg. Keep you holed up
for a day or two due to your aggression, then we'll see how it
goes."

I nodded, didn't really care. The peace will do me fine; my life has
never been my own so they can do what they want.

II

Not much time to think with this shit running through my blood. Fuck, I
felt rough in the morning. The cell stank of crap and the food was
bilge but I had two pillows and it wasn't cold so it evened things out.
The peephole twitched and faded. A long pause, then the loud clunk,
clink of the lock. Fully swung open I could see Greenie standing on the
other side of the cell door.

"Your going on the ward Mozart!"