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Roderick Fell in Love With a Mental Health Clinic.
Beyond the Walls of the Concrete Jungle
Beyond the walls of the concrete jungle
Roderick had wanted to enter that psychiatric clinic since the very first day he saw it, advertised in a glossy health magazine on a friend’s coffee table. It featured beautiful porches surrounding the main building, and for all he knew, this was by far the greenest place he had seen in years. The complex comprised freshly built structures adorned with polished blond Swedish wood, forming a curved “S” shape on the plot. It nestled within a lush forest area that seemed to begin right at the hospital’s yard. The photos showed no patients, except for two young men—one looking out of a window from some room in the building and the other basking in the sun on a wooden bench in the garden.
Roderick loved wood. His entire life had unfolded within concrete walls in a city steeped in cement structures and vast expanses devoid of greenery. Amid the cars and motorcycles, he used to stroll around his childhood home. However, he often stopped after only six or seven hundred meters, disturbed by the city’s noise, the construction cranes and compressors working around the clock, and the hordes of cars moving like modular snakes through the streets.
