G - In the Madhouse

You can't escape the Jesus Freaks, not even in here. There's a wiry
old man, about a metre tall, if that, who staggers round the ward,
muttering to himself and making these wild gestures. He told me once,
whispered to me through the warm fug of halitosis, that God came to
visit him in a dream, and granted him the gift of speaking in tongues.
Some gift. It landed him here, the daft bald fucker.

Having said that, we're all bald. They shave you when you get in, and
once a week after that. Makes the veggies easier to clean, I guess, and
stops the hysterics tearing their hair out by the roots. Sister
Josephine said we're in here for rehabilitation, but she smiles as she
mops up shit off the chequered floor tiles, so what's she know? I've
been stuck in this cesspit for, well, it must be near to a year now.
I'm not exactly sure anymore. I tried counting haircuts but I'm out for
days sometimes after therapy and I totally lost track. I get injections
every morning. They're supposed to be for my legs but I swear it's some
kind of chemical for messing with my head. It doesn't do shit about the
pain, anyway. I can still feel the shrapnel in my knees, and they're
not even there anymore.

I hate this fucking place. It's full of cripples and dribbling spastics
that stare into space and shit everywhere. All I ever hear in therapy
is that officious little prick Percell trying to reconcile me to my
fate and turn me to the Lord. Fuck him. Fuck God, fuck twatty little
Chaplains and their twatty little Napoleon complexes, fuck being happy
that my legs got blown off. I, for one, will not roll over and start
genuflecting to the Inscrutable Immutable for opening His benevolent,
all-powerful bowels and royally shitting all over me and my former
life. I told Percell as much and he flinched. If I wasn't in here, that
kind of blaspheming would've got me a week's Penance, minimum. I wish
they'd just shoot me and have done with it. Rather that than a lifetime
spent rotting between the same four walls with the same peeling lemon
paint.

If we were poorer, the State'd let us drink or Cyno ourselves to death
in some Old Town back street - well, I guess the Old Town's nothing but
back streets, come to think of it. But I could've gone out with a
rictus grin on my vomit-smeared face, slumped in a gutter knocking back
rot-gut. Eventually some random punter would've caved my skull in with
a half-brick and nicked my coat. At least there'd be a fucking end to
it, you know? This is like one of those shitty syndicated Holy-Joe
sitcoms that the network keeps running and running and running even
though it was never funny the first time.

You get the whole medical package when you finish your training. It's
why I'm banged up instead of lying dead in the slums. I didn't even
want to join the City Guards, but Mum had her heart set on it. Big Bro
got into the military. He always loved playing the big shot muscleman
Fundie, hitting the treadmill, hitting the books, hitting the Cyno when
the pressure got too much and he thought no one was looking. Big,
muscle-bound, stupid fuck. Got killed on a reccy down south. Nailbomb,
some low-tech joke of a weapon like that. Sliced those big, macho pecs
of his to ribbons. He's with God now, apparently. Bet he's up there
licking the Almighty's feet right now and loving every minute of it,
the pious fuck.

This flannel dressing gown they gave me stinks of puke. I think whoever
had it last must've died in it, lucky bastard. I'd go on a hunger
strike if they weren't so bloody good at force-feeding. I'm kept awake
at night by moans and screams and incoherent babbling.

The guy on the bed next to me thinks he's Jesus. Fucking Jesus! How
unoriginal can you get? Everyone wants to be Christ nowadays. I
remember the day my theology teacher flipped out. Well, I think I
remember it. Stuff gets all jumbled up. Whatever shit they've got me on
makes it hard to think straight. Memories are all hazy, like I've been
drunk for the last twenty years, and this is the hangover.
Yeah&;#8230; a grim kind of limbo. Maybe if I close my eyes for long
enough, I'll disappear.

It's coming back to me. I'm sure that's how it happened. We were
picking apart Revelations, and he was reading some of it out to us in
that gravelly academic voice he used to put on, cradling the Good Book
in his one arm and thrusting into the air with the other. He started to
really get into it, working himself up into a kind of frenzy, shouting
so hard the big blue veins on his forehead swelled and stood out. He
was yelling and waving his arm and some of the girls in the front row
looked like they were going to start crying, then he climbed onto his
chair and then onto the desk. We had no idea what was going on. He used
to get passionate sometimes but it was like he was fucking possessed,
y'know? His eyes were all glazed over and he was spitting everywhere. I
still remember the phrase he fixed on: "I am Alpha and Omega, the first
and the last!" He kept repeating it over and over; he was still baying
it when the Guardsmen turned up. We got herded out - I don't think they
wanted us to see them 'restraining' him. I've trained with one of those
censers; mauls with big hydraulic rams and electrified heads. They're
right on the Non-lethal Methods borderline. He must've gone down
hard.

What was his name? Mr Thompson? Tomlinson? Thomas? Fuck&;#8230; it
won't come. It's like all my memories are stuck behind a frosted glass
screen and I can kind of see what I'm after but I can't get at it. They
know how to get inside your head, the bastards. Percell's already
threatened me with surgery. I don't know how serious he is. They're
massaging the stats as it is - when I was on the outside corrective
brain surgery was a PR nightmare. Even the Ecclesiarchy frowned on it.
Archbishop H?ek's just scared of getting his hands dirty - I've always
said he's a pussy. Confucius said 'he who sits on fence gets it up
backside' - or something like that. Fuck knows. Who cares? I'm a
gibbering lunatic anyway. What do I know about fucking politics? The
whole Empire's one huge asylum. I hope we get nuked.

The Jesus guy tried to comfort me last night. He sat on his bed, with
this goofy smile. Second Coming my fucking amputated legs. He said he
knew I was in pain. I called him a fucking genius; I said he must be
the Son of God. I asked him how the fuck he worked it out. I asked him
what he was going to do for his next trick. I said I'd heard he had a
whole 'heal the lame' routine.

He just smiled at me. I guess he didn't have anything smart to say, so
he just tried to look all peaceful and benevolent. I was waiting for
him to call me 'my child'. I would have smacked him one, I swear. I
don't care if he's the fucking Messiah.

He looked fuck all like Jesus, anyway. Everyone looks like bloody monks
here. We're all bald and thin and drawn from lack of sleep. He watched
me for a while, smiling, then he said that soon my suffering would come
to an end. I asked him if he'd mind strangling me. He just got up and
walked away.

I hope he's right. I hope Sister Catherine fucks my dose up or the
tattoos guy flips again and decides to break my neck. I hope the sky
opens up and God lets loose a whole motherload of Holy whoop-ass on the
ward. Fuck it, I hope we've pissed Him off so much He takes out the
whole planet. We'd be much more useful as space dust. If I was Him I'd
cut my fucking losses.