The Bubble-Room in The Mental Hospital
How this room affected those inside and outside of it.
The “bubble-room” was where everyone went when they were naughty. That was what I called the room. It was stark white.
Someone planned this room, anticipating that someone was going to use it. Perhaps there were medical or psychiatry journals that spoke about the benefits of using such a bubble-room. Maybe:
”Calms the patient considerably. Statistical analysis shows that the space is therapeutic for those who cannot hold a fulltime job or function in reality.”
Of course, who knows if any of these doctors or psychiatrists who wrote such an imaginary journal article ever sat in there at all. Probably not at five in the morning when the nurses were wheeling carts with blood pressure cuffs and needles full of lithium, thorazine, or whatever new drug a pharmaceutical company might be pushing.
Sometimes, the silence in the bubble-room would heighten and ebb like a cathedral’s bell, ringing in the peasants for morning mass. Probably not the sort of effect ever expected from the bubble-room.
One girl sat in there for a few days. Her vomit stained the sheets m. It served to remind the next person of yesterday’s breakfast menu.
