Absent-mindedly you wash your few dishes, staring into your forlorn, pathetic looking garden. If a man didn’t come and mow it each week the grass would reach the window sills by now. You don’t garden. You pick up a dirty glass. It’s a long, skinny one dotted with cheerfully coloured circles, but some of the paint has chipped off and it looks a little mournful. Dipping it in the lukewarm, partly soapy water you lift it up to study the bubbles reflecting in the sunlight of the glass. Crash. The glass slips through your fingers, colliding with the edge of the bench, before shattering on the floor. Suddenly your vision blurs. It’s almost as if you are plunged into a memory, except you don’t remember it. You are in a brightly lit, clinical looking room. The floors and walls are all tiled with white, like you think a bathroom would be. A metal bench sits in the middle of the room. You stand there holding a different glass in your hand. Again you are unable to stop it before it slips through your fingers and shatters on the floor. A man, clean shaven wearing a lab coat approaches you and starts to say something. You return to reality.
Later, you hang out the washing in your forlorn backyard. You think about your vision. You’ve never seen such a strange room before. You think it over before pushing the though aside. You don’t know where your thoughts come from. You clean up the glass, wrapping the large piece in newspaper and sweeping the smaller pieces into the bin. You wish you had a vacuume cleaner to pick up the littlest shards. When it gets dark you go upstairs and sit on the bench in front of the window. Laying your head again the cold glass you peer through the metal of the bars and watch the sun go down. Once again you are plunged into a scene. You are in the same white tiled room. This time you stand at the door and peer through the bars crossing the small window and out into the corridor. You see the same man again. As he sees you looking at him he takes out a large circle of keys and approaches the door.
The next morning you wake and dress, leaving your bed in a muddled pile of greying sheets. When Susan arrives you sit down together on your lone lounge seat. “I broke a glass yesterday.” Susan’s smile seems a little forced. “How did that happen?” “I dropped it when I was washing my dishes,” you reply. Susan’s features relax. “Did you get them picked up?” “Yes,” you reply, “But the little shards are still on the floor.” Susan nods briefly “Don’t worry about them, I’ll send someone in to tidy them up. We don’t want you to hurt yourself on them.” When Susan leaves you remain sitting on the couch. Thinking. Maybe you should have told Susan about your visions. She might know what they mean. You decide to tell her tomorrow
You go outside and pull the washing off the line, unclipping the simple curved plastic holding your clothes up. In your room you strip your sheets off the bed and begin to remake your bed. Lifting the solid mattress of the metal frame your mind switches off as you automatically fold the new sheet tightly around the mattress. Pulling the top sheet across the bed and smoothing it down, you accidently drop the mattress back onto the frame, squashing your fingers in between. As your hand starts to throb your room fades away and you are back in the white room. You are standing facing a bed, which looks like your bed, which you hadn’t seen in the room before. Your hand is lying between the mattress and the bed frame, still throbbing. As you turn around you notice the man in the white coat mark something on his clipboard. Then you’re back in your room.
When a woman comes to vacuume up the glass you stand in the doorway and watch her. She says nothing to you, but her vacuume cleaner is shiny and new with a long black hose. She vacuums the kitchen floor methodically. Before it gets dark you eat your meal, sitting on your lounge seat. You go to bed. The next morning you are more careful when making your bed.
“I have been seeing a white, tiled room.” You tell Susan your visions and she looks astonished. She nods at you, tells you not to worry and opens her large, black bag. “Take one pill each night after you eat,” she says handing you a bottle of pills, “Try to remember to take them every day. I will remind you each morning when I see you.” You take the bottle and put them on your kitchen bench when she leaves. That night you pick the bottle up after you have eaten your meal. You open the lid and pick out one pill. It looks yellow and plastic. You put it in your mouth and swallow. The pill lodges in the back of your throat and you work your throat as the pill becomes increasingly uncomfortable.
All of a sudden you leave your room again, but this time you don’t go to the white room. You are outside a small cottage. There are red shutters next to the windows and flowers in the garden and three people stand on the front porch with expressionless looks on their faces. You try to walk towards them to ask them what is happening but arms grab you roughly from behind and pull you into the back of a white truck parked on the curb. The truck has bars on the back windows. You cry out and as you do one of the people on the porch screams and runs towards you. She is small and tears run down her round face as she runs towards you. Before she can reach you, two men in white lab coats grab her arms and drag her away. Time jumps forward. You are in the back of the white van. You peer out between the barred windows and see a large house in front of you. The words Helling Mental Asylum are written on the gates. You are driven through them and hear then shut behind you with a loud bang. Time leaps again and you are being led down a corridor by the two men in lab coats. The walls and floors of the corridor are tiled with white, like you think a bathroom would be. You scream and trying to break free. They take you to a door and one pulls out a large circle of keys and unlocks it. You are pushed inside and the door locks behind you.
Time skips again. You are sitting on the metal framed bed in the corner. The door opens and a nurse in a black dress and white apron enters with the two men behind her. They stand on either side of the door as she goes over to the metal bench. Taking out a bottle of pills and picking one out, she nods to the men. They grab your arms and she opens your mouth and pushes the pill down your throat. You scream and jerk away and the pill lodges in your throat. “Water” you scream. The nurse nods and brings you a glass half filled with water. Your arms are released and you take the glass and drink it, feeling the pill slide down your throat. You stand up and one of the men in coats jumps in front of you. You hold the glass up and let it slide through your fingers as you scream, enjoying the noise it makes on the floor. Crash. You feel a sharp pain in your arm and jerk your head around to see a needle being pulled out of your arm. The world goes black.
You wake and see the faces of two nurses above you. They are holding your shoulders and arms down on your bed. You can’t move your legs either. A buzzing noise above you warns you of the man in a white lab coat standing over your head. He has a drill in his hand. There is a hammer on the metal tray beside the bed. Another pain, this time in your neck. The world goes black.
Fuzziness. A man in a coat standing over you with a clipboard. The corridor, grey and blurry. The outside of the big house. Black.
When you wake up you don’t remember where you are. You are sitting on a lone couch seat. Absent-mindedly, you get up and walk through a door into a kitchen. There is a dirty glass sitting on the bench. It’s a long, skinny one dotted with cheerfully coloured circles, but some of the paint has chipped off and it looks a little mournful. Dipping it in the lukewarm, partly soapy water you start to scrub it clean.
