PATIENT:--CONSTANTINE, John
D.H.S.S No.:--YX 53 72 58 D
N.H.S. No.:--MPLQ 614
SUPERVISING DOCTOR:--Dr. Roger HUNTOON
RAVENSCAR SECURE HOSPITAL confidential file
ITEM:--Transcripts of hand-written notes found in the wastepaper bin of patients ward.
File for ASSESSMENT / INFO
Extract A
The bloody medication stops you DREAMING. I was so glad to be rid of the NIGHTMARES. It's taken me 'til now to realise. Christ, whacked into limbo by the chemical cosh, eh? So that's thier game.
Well, sod'em, from now on the pills go straight down the bloody toilet - ha, see them swirling in the vortex, rattling off around the bend and down the tubes - gurgling off to waste.
Wish I could follow them - pipe-dreams eh? Nah, I'd rather face the terrors on my own territory - with my own magic. I know a few tricks for fighting DEMONS - some of them even work.
Let the b*****d nightmares come, bringing their threshing jaws to chew the quiet, peaceful night into bloody tatters - I'm a gambler, I'll take my chances on the Catherine Wheel of Fortune . . . . .
Extract B
Dreams last night, for the first time in what seems like months - probably is - time is condensed in this crazy bloody place.
I am in a waiting-room - a doctor's or dentist's - cold-leather, horsehair furniture - framed diploma on the wall - copies of NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC and COUNTRY LIFE magazines on a glass table.
I'm waiting. I seem to have been waiting a very long time - but for what? I'm nervous and excited - there are faint, mysterious sounds in the distance - voices, machinery. Something important is happening - a secret ritual is taking place in the SURGERY. Soon it will be my turn.
I look at the cover of a NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC. It shows a black woman, naked - pendulous breasts scarred with tribal markings. For some reason I am fascinated by this. I look down and am surprised to see bare and ink-stained knees - I am wearing short-trousers. I'm a schoolboy.
A girl - about thirteen comes into the waiting-room. She has a strange smile about her mouth. She comes and stands right in front of me - she smells warm.
"What's it like?" I ask her.
"I'm not supposed to tell you. It's a secret - for adults. Here, eat this."
She places a small, button-like lozenge in my mouth. It is pungent, aromatic - like my Grandma's gin - forbidden fruit.
There is laughter and, from the surgery, my name is called. It's my turn now to learn the secrets.
[well that's all pretty obvious - best not let the shrinks get their hands on any of these notes though. Let the bastards work for their keep.]
Extract C
Another childhood dream - about my sister, Cheryl.
It's a chilly early winter evening - must be a Saturday, the sports results are on the telly - be DR WHO soon. I'm in the yard, perched on the coalshed roof outside my sister's bedroom window. She can't see me - she's got the light on.
She's undressing - taking off the cheap, thin clothes she wears for her Saturday job at Woolworth's - pausing, breathtakingly naked, to kiss the pin-up picture of Paul McCartney thumb-tacked to her wall as she passes on the way to the wardrobe to fetch her makeup and 'going-out' clothes.
I've watched this many times before. I know them off by heart. The black stockings - the mini-skirt and sweater - the patent leather belt.
I'm fascinated by the way she dons her clothes, the faces she pulls in the mirror as she applies the false eyelashes, like giant spiders and paints her face for the sexual tourney of the all-night disco in Leeds.
I watch her, breathing soothing coal-smoke, which wafts from the geometric rows of red chimney pots, lost in the claustrophobic nostalgia of an urban, English evening.
I like to watch.
[Hmm, another one to keep away from the shrinks, elsethey'll be adding voyeurism and incest to my list of sins.
Cheryl, eh? 'Thought she'd have been to see me.
Still, poor kid's probably got her hands full. Last I heard she was pregnant and was going to marry that useless wanker Tony Masters - she'd be better off on her own.]
THE ABOVE REPRESENT RECONSTRUCTIONS MADE FROM CHARRED REMAINS OF LARGELY DESTROYED NOTEBOOK.
All evidence available attributes them to the above named patient.
In my opinion, patient is currently on a down-turn
side of trauma cycle. Possibly DANGEROUS. Keep
under CLOSE OBSERVATION and maintain
STRICT REGIME.
This patient is possessed of a high IQ
and an amoral intelligence.
DO NOT UNDERESTIMATE!
R.H.
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