Cell 34

Chapter 9 ¦ Undated ¦ Letter from Mr. Frank Green to Dr. Henry Smith

Chapter 9

Undated. Letter from Mr. Frank Green to Dr. Henry Smith.

Henry,

If you are reading this, the cleaner has made good on his promise.

The night after writing to you last, I was dragged from bed. The only thing I can remember is a couple of my fingernails tore off because I was clinging to the mattress. Then, darkness. I woke up in Smethwick's old room by the dawn chorus through barred windows and the jarring rattle of the tea trolley on the tiles floating through my open cell door. I must admit, even just writing the words' my cell' leads to such a rush of dread and panic that I question the reality of this whole situation.

Smethwick's cell, like all the others, measures 2 meters wide by 3 meters long with a ceiling only slightly higher than a man is tall. While the logic behind this is noble (to make it impossible for a patient to hang themselves), it creates a stifling atmosphere, as though the walls and ceiling are always poised to move an inch narrower and lower should I dare look away. A barred window scarcely illuminates the room, its glass too greasy to allow any clear shafts of light in, even at midday.

However, unlike all the other cells, mine had been recently repainted a brilliant white, and the floor tiles had been replaced so recently that the grouting wasn't even fully dry. I suppose the bloodstains from Smethwick smashing his teeth out were too stubborn. I also suspect the star symbols he etched were too deep for a fresh layer of paint to fully conceal. The paint's metallic stench was nauseating, so much so that I requested if I could open the door. The door handle and the catch were removed as a response, possibly as a cruel joke, possibly for purely pragmatic reasons.

The result is that it always swings open almost entirely. In any other building, I could simply lie next to the door to stop it opening at night, but all the cell doors here open outwards. I guess this is the same in the US as well(?)

While working my rounds, I was told this was to stop patients from barricading themselves in. Accurate as that may be, now I'm inside, it makes me feel utterly vulnerable. The best I can do is to hook my finger into the hole where the handle used to be and swing the door closed. As soon as I let go to step away from the door, it swings silently and slowly outwards again.

I must have only been here for a couple of days. Repeated memories flicker on and off in my mind of my bare feet slip-slapping on the cold tiles down the gallery as I hobble towards the entrance hall as fast as I can. From there, it's a clear run across the grounds and freedom beyond.

Yet, each time it happens, I wake up inside the cell again, with a cup of tea and a hot bowl of porridge in the doorway, without a headache or signs of being restrained (or marks from being injected with a sedative). I know I tried to escape; I could picture everything so vividly. Yet, why wouldn't I wake up in a more secure cell, strapped to my bed, or punished?

Unanswerable questions gang up with sleep deprivation. They ask me if I'm so sure I've tried to escape that maybe I've just been imagining things due to the stress. They ask whether all my memories might be as fictitious as dreams and how can I be absolutely sure that I've not been a patient here for years.

To steady my nerves, I started scratching a tally on the underside of the bowl of porridge after each escape attempt. This worked for a while. I would wake up each time and check the bottom of the bowl. Sure enough, there were my tally lines scratched there. Each time I woke up, I would eat the porridge first, then drink the tea in one gulp before marking another line neatly onto the bottom of the bowl. Then I'd run for the exit. Sometimes, my hand would touch the brass door handle into the entrance hall, where I could just about glimpse the flower beds outside. Other times, it seemed like I would only set one step outside my cell before I woke up. For a while, it was easy to lose myself to the notion that my existence has always been this and that this loop will continue again and again: an eternal neo-Sisyphean torment.

Then, one time, I woke up in the middle of the afternoon with a police officer peering through the cell's door hatch, which was, much to my surprise, fully closed and fitted with a handle. Although my heart leaped when I saw him, his response was a look of poorly concealed disgust. I could hear Dr. Voigt telling the officer that I was "Smethwick, a long-term patient here and a dangerous fantasist" and "obsessed with the overlap of the occult and the fascistic." This was, Voigt explained, evidenced by such books in my flat. I felt the urge to scream aloud that somebody had sent them to me, but I couldn't. While I could move my body sluggishly, as though weights were attached to my arms and legs, I couldn't speak. I strained to open my mouth, and a faint yet incomprehensible babble fell out. At first, I thought this could be due to being paralyzed with fear; I have been unable to forge sentences or even whole words since then, as though I were a right-handed painter who has been forced to paint with his left.

When I heard them walk away from my cell, I moved to the door and held open the hatch to hear better as he continued to regale the officer of my apparent "grand conspiracy that the hospital staff harvest the patients" and that I kept "telling people that he, Smethwick had died, and refers to himself in the third person, can you believe that!?" he laughed, slapping the policeman jovially on the shoulder. The officer turned his head and looked at me with unspoken, unbroken pity. I turned away partly out of shame, partly lest it become contagious, and partly because I don't know what I would have done if Dr Voigt had glanced a dishonest smile at me. A cup of tea and a bowl of porridge both sat steaming on my window sill. Next to these lay some sheets of paper, a couple of new pencils, and a note with "I know who you are. Write down everything, and I will send it to Henry," in kind handwriting.

I have to place my faith entirely in the ministers (to whom I posted those letters) and in you to secure my release and to investigate this hospital.

I pray to the Almighty that this letter reaches you, and I pray for His strength to prevent the disintegration of my sanity. I would appreciate it greatly, my dear friend, should you, upon reading these words, beseech the heavens on my behalf, as I cannot ask them aloud.

Frank