FINALE Fog Flees the Sundowners!
December 2nd 2007 06:28
“Now Fog, I want to show you the Calming Room. This is where you take someone who becomes very upset and inconsolable. It is designed to quieten them down. It works extremely well and I am sure you will like it too.”
‘Too’? What was she suggesting? I quickly abandoned this line of thought, lest I see my contorted reflection in a mirror. It then occurred to me, there were no mirrors, nor any clocks.
No, I wasn’t so sure that a room would calm anyone down; I was not sure at all! I began to wonder whether there was an electrified chair in there, to surreptitiously deliver electro-convulsive shock therapy as it released nitrous oxide from under the chair’s frilly skirt. I could do with some of that myself at this stage.
We left the lounge room and turned into a side corridor off the main one, then immediately stopped. Sister McKenny opened the door and turned on the light, I gingerly followed her in. The room was white, entirely white, draped with white curtains, ceiling swathed in white silk, like a Bedouin tent, and windowless.
The floor was covered with a very deeply padded plain grey carpet; it was like walking on a sponge, probably to prevent head injury from smashing their noggins on the floor, I mused. There were two small comfy white sofas and a small side table, which was plain wood, beside the far sofa. On it were a collection of shells, and a few small bottles with coloured liquid in them. Very odd I thought.
“This is a multi-media special effects room, so I will have to show you what to do.” With that, Sister opened a white curtain behind the chairs and revealed a huge stack of electronic equipment all wired up on the shelves. The lighting was on a dimmer and set to low.
“You sit your charge down in a chair then press this button, and this, then this, then this and this…” she pressed so many buttons with such speed you knew she had done this a million times, but had forgotten how daunting and hard to remember all those buttons were, but, because of my stage manager background, I wasn’t too concerned about that. However, what happens if you press the wrong one? That thought dulled into my head’s background noise, and once again, I realised I wasn’t paying attention.
“There we are. All done, it’s really very simple, as you can see. It will begin in a few moments. Please sit down.”
I shot back to Grade One; ‘Now that is how it is done children, any more questions?’ How WHAT was done? I can’t raise my hand; the other children will think I am stupid; they’ll all turn around and make those nasty little faces at me. The nun will hit me for not listening, daydreaming again!
I was still staring blankly at the electronic equipment.
“Now, you can sit next to the house member on this couch, always sit the house member on this couch, away from the door, and gently stroke their hand as you very quietly and calmly reassure them. You can also use these scented oils and massage their hands. Keep a nice warm tone in your voice. Give them a sea shell to hold, mention how nice it is by the sea. Just keep comforting and reassuring them.” I then noticed the audio-visual show had started.
“The whole idea is to give them a feeling of being by the seaside, and take them back to a time they were happy. It was developed in America, and has quite wonderful results. Try it and see for yourself”
I sat on the other sofa, then saw, on the wall, a projection of a sea scape. The audio was of a seaside, waves slowly spreading onto the sandy beach, with a calming gentle sound. But, it was the projection that worried me. It looked like something from a 1950s Grade One reader, ‘Dick and Jane, by the seaside’.
All washed out boring pale pastel colours, and the images were rotating slowly, having been hand painted on a glass wheel. They were of sea shells, the beach, gulls; the disc shuddered every now and then throwing the image briefly out of focus. ‘Dick and Jane by the sea, on LSD!’ I began to feel very ill at ease.
I suppose it had some sort of hypnotic, palliative effect, after some time. But, it just seemed odd, disturbing. They expected me to sit in a silken draped Bedouin ‘tent’, with a rotating sea scape projected on the wall, which was enough to make anyone seasick and then I was expected to massage their hands with some scented oils, while they clutched some sea shells, listening to an audio of lapping waves!
I couldn’t help but wonder, ‘why not a beach, with sand on the floor, canvas deck chairs, bucket and spade? Why the ruddy tent?’ If they were all Muslim, I could sort of understand the tent thing.
All Sister McKenny needed to do now was play Simon and Garfunkel’s ‘Bridge Over Troubled Water’ and I would absolutely scream! I’d leap to my feet and start tearing the material off the walls like some demented cat trying to escape. I started to feel claustrophobic, hot, sweaty, and irritated. And what happens when something goes wrong with the technical stuff?
This always happens at some point, in theatre, but at least there you have some control. Here, you could have the audio tape go slow, the ruddy psychodelic sea trip on the wall speed up, and while trying to fix the bloody audio-visual contraptions with one hand, I could easily see me absentmindedly rubbing a sea shell covered in oil into the back of some wretch’s paper thin skull, all the while yelling at them to stop screaming and calm down!
It suddenly got to me. Fear gripped my throat like some demonic poltergeist and began squeezing the life from me. I was losing air, I felt faint. It was just too BIZARRE!!!
Sister suggested that I could also sit on the same chair, beside the troubled house member, and cuddle them if it seemed appropriate at the time.
I couldn’t think of anything worse!
“Actually, I think I’d prefer to stay on my chair.” My rejection of this more tactile suggestion was greeted by a cool look. I didn’t care. The idea of cuddling some mentally lost octogenarian with all the rest of that nonsense going on was too much to bear. I didn’t know these people for heavens sake! They were not my grandparents! It was just too much.
I then had a different reaction, of sorts. I fell into a kind of trance, cutting off, escaping to a void where I might heal my frayed nerves. I think shock was setting in.
‘Well, you certainly seem to be relaxing!”
“NO I’M NOT!” I snapped.
The reply was just a little hysterical, a little too high pitched and totally undiplomatic. A small stunned silence ensued. My mouth began to open, to say, ‘sorry, HAHA didn’t mean it!’ But nothing came out, just a gaping stare.
“There is nothing to worry about; you don’t have to do this….right away. There will always be someone else here to assist.”
“Is that right? I won’t be left alone here will I?” I started to sound like someone on the deck of the Titanic watching the last lifeboat being launched. ‘Women and children, and MANIACS FIRST!!!’
A flood of relief flushed through me, I would be saved.
“Perhaps we have had enough for today. You’ve had to take a lot on board. It is rather daunting at first, but I am sure you will get the hang of it all.” Internally, I wasn’t reassured.
We had to say goodbye as we left the building, down the line of sitting parents expecting their lift home, passed the woman who screamed in my ear and passed the poor woman who muttered “tut tut” continually. “That is all she ever says. Some are like that.” Sister McKenny said cheerily. I felt as if I completely understood how ‘tut tut’ felt.
Then we were at the gate and the combination lock, which I had completely forgotten of course. “Remember; don’t let them see the combination, one wandered off one day after learning it. Some have a good memory for numbers.”
I didn’t!
“Umm...Sister, what happens if I forget the number?”
“Well, I expect you will be having a long night with the Sundowners!” My face obviously fell. Sister giggled, “Just joking! All you do is call on the phone. That also has a security code of course, but I am sure you will cope!”
Two things then struck me. This was the first joke I had heard a nun tell in my life, and it was at my expense. Secondly, I could easily see me clutching at the bars screaming, “GET ME OUTTA HERE! I NEED TO GO HOME NOW!!”
And it would be just my luck that someone new was on duty that day, a new nurse, and Sister McKenny was away on her holidays. My screaming would attract the new nurse, who would say, in a soothing voice, “Now calm down, you are not going home today. Come with me, I want to show you a lovely room, do you like the seaside?”
FINIS
‘Too’? What was she suggesting? I quickly abandoned this line of thought, lest I see my contorted reflection in a mirror. It then occurred to me, there were no mirrors, nor any clocks.
No, I wasn’t so sure that a room would calm anyone down; I was not sure at all! I began to wonder whether there was an electrified chair in there, to surreptitiously deliver electro-convulsive shock therapy as it released nitrous oxide from under the chair’s frilly skirt. I could do with some of that myself at this stage.
We left the lounge room and turned into a side corridor off the main one, then immediately stopped. Sister McKenny opened the door and turned on the light, I gingerly followed her in. The room was white, entirely white, draped with white curtains, ceiling swathed in white silk, like a Bedouin tent, and windowless.
The floor was covered with a very deeply padded plain grey carpet; it was like walking on a sponge, probably to prevent head injury from smashing their noggins on the floor, I mused. There were two small comfy white sofas and a small side table, which was plain wood, beside the far sofa. On it were a collection of shells, and a few small bottles with coloured liquid in them. Very odd I thought.
“This is a multi-media special effects room, so I will have to show you what to do.” With that, Sister opened a white curtain behind the chairs and revealed a huge stack of electronic equipment all wired up on the shelves. The lighting was on a dimmer and set to low.
“You sit your charge down in a chair then press this button, and this, then this, then this and this…” she pressed so many buttons with such speed you knew she had done this a million times, but had forgotten how daunting and hard to remember all those buttons were, but, because of my stage manager background, I wasn’t too concerned about that. However, what happens if you press the wrong one? That thought dulled into my head’s background noise, and once again, I realised I wasn’t paying attention.
“There we are. All done, it’s really very simple, as you can see. It will begin in a few moments. Please sit down.”
I shot back to Grade One; ‘Now that is how it is done children, any more questions?’ How WHAT was done? I can’t raise my hand; the other children will think I am stupid; they’ll all turn around and make those nasty little faces at me. The nun will hit me for not listening, daydreaming again!
I was still staring blankly at the electronic equipment.
“Now, you can sit next to the house member on this couch, always sit the house member on this couch, away from the door, and gently stroke their hand as you very quietly and calmly reassure them. You can also use these scented oils and massage their hands. Keep a nice warm tone in your voice. Give them a sea shell to hold, mention how nice it is by the sea. Just keep comforting and reassuring them.” I then noticed the audio-visual show had started.
“The whole idea is to give them a feeling of being by the seaside, and take them back to a time they were happy. It was developed in America, and has quite wonderful results. Try it and see for yourself”
I sat on the other sofa, then saw, on the wall, a projection of a sea scape. The audio was of a seaside, waves slowly spreading onto the sandy beach, with a calming gentle sound. But, it was the projection that worried me. It looked like something from a 1950s Grade One reader, ‘Dick and Jane, by the seaside’.
All washed out boring pale pastel colours, and the images were rotating slowly, having been hand painted on a glass wheel. They were of sea shells, the beach, gulls; the disc shuddered every now and then throwing the image briefly out of focus. ‘Dick and Jane by the sea, on LSD!’ I began to feel very ill at ease.
I suppose it had some sort of hypnotic, palliative effect, after some time. But, it just seemed odd, disturbing. They expected me to sit in a silken draped Bedouin ‘tent’, with a rotating sea scape projected on the wall, which was enough to make anyone seasick and then I was expected to massage their hands with some scented oils, while they clutched some sea shells, listening to an audio of lapping waves!
I couldn’t help but wonder, ‘why not a beach, with sand on the floor, canvas deck chairs, bucket and spade? Why the ruddy tent?’ If they were all Muslim, I could sort of understand the tent thing.
All Sister McKenny needed to do now was play Simon and Garfunkel’s ‘Bridge Over Troubled Water’ and I would absolutely scream! I’d leap to my feet and start tearing the material off the walls like some demented cat trying to escape. I started to feel claustrophobic, hot, sweaty, and irritated. And what happens when something goes wrong with the technical stuff?
This always happens at some point, in theatre, but at least there you have some control. Here, you could have the audio tape go slow, the ruddy psychodelic sea trip on the wall speed up, and while trying to fix the bloody audio-visual contraptions with one hand, I could easily see me absentmindedly rubbing a sea shell covered in oil into the back of some wretch’s paper thin skull, all the while yelling at them to stop screaming and calm down!
It suddenly got to me. Fear gripped my throat like some demonic poltergeist and began squeezing the life from me. I was losing air, I felt faint. It was just too BIZARRE!!!
Sister suggested that I could also sit on the same chair, beside the troubled house member, and cuddle them if it seemed appropriate at the time.
I couldn’t think of anything worse!
“Actually, I think I’d prefer to stay on my chair.” My rejection of this more tactile suggestion was greeted by a cool look. I didn’t care. The idea of cuddling some mentally lost octogenarian with all the rest of that nonsense going on was too much to bear. I didn’t know these people for heavens sake! They were not my grandparents! It was just too much.
I then had a different reaction, of sorts. I fell into a kind of trance, cutting off, escaping to a void where I might heal my frayed nerves. I think shock was setting in.
‘Well, you certainly seem to be relaxing!”
“NO I’M NOT!” I snapped.
The reply was just a little hysterical, a little too high pitched and totally undiplomatic. A small stunned silence ensued. My mouth began to open, to say, ‘sorry, HAHA didn’t mean it!’ But nothing came out, just a gaping stare.
“There is nothing to worry about; you don’t have to do this….right away. There will always be someone else here to assist.”
“Is that right? I won’t be left alone here will I?” I started to sound like someone on the deck of the Titanic watching the last lifeboat being launched. ‘Women and children, and MANIACS FIRST!!!’
A flood of relief flushed through me, I would be saved.
“Perhaps we have had enough for today. You’ve had to take a lot on board. It is rather daunting at first, but I am sure you will get the hang of it all.” Internally, I wasn’t reassured.
We had to say goodbye as we left the building, down the line of sitting parents expecting their lift home, passed the woman who screamed in my ear and passed the poor woman who muttered “tut tut” continually. “That is all she ever says. Some are like that.” Sister McKenny said cheerily. I felt as if I completely understood how ‘tut tut’ felt.
Then we were at the gate and the combination lock, which I had completely forgotten of course. “Remember; don’t let them see the combination, one wandered off one day after learning it. Some have a good memory for numbers.”
I didn’t!
“Umm...Sister, what happens if I forget the number?”
“Well, I expect you will be having a long night with the Sundowners!” My face obviously fell. Sister giggled, “Just joking! All you do is call on the phone. That also has a security code of course, but I am sure you will cope!”
Two things then struck me. This was the first joke I had heard a nun tell in my life, and it was at my expense. Secondly, I could easily see me clutching at the bars screaming, “GET ME OUTTA HERE! I NEED TO GO HOME NOW!!”
And it would be just my luck that someone new was on duty that day, a new nurse, and Sister McKenny was away on her holidays. My screaming would attract the new nurse, who would say, in a soothing voice, “Now calm down, you are not going home today. Come with me, I want to show you a lovely room, do you like the seaside?”
FINIS
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Comment by tlcorbin
Coffee Quip
A Global Citizen
Paranormal Paranormal
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Alaska Chronicle
Sleezer's World
Comment by Mountain Fog
Infognito
so we now address you as "Raven Mad"??? tee hee!
Anyhoo...thanks for making some sort of comment, they seem few and far between here. Maybe it is time for me to abandon mini epics and post a short mindless piece of drivel....
cheers
fog
Comment by Tracy
Movies and Life
Great read,
Tracy
Comment by Mountain Fog
Infognito
yes I coped during the familiarisation process, interviews and all, but once I had left, after the big tour, I just couldn't bring myself to do it.
I eventually rang her and apologised, but said maybe in a little while I will be better equipped to cope, and that meeting them all at once had overwhelmed me, in fact made me very anxious.
The nun then told me she had noticed!! She said I looked scared...she was right...
I feel rather disappointed with myself, and hate having put them all through that, just to have me drop out.
But, maybe they have now reassessed the process of selection, thanks to me, and start you off meeting the the poor dears first, to weed out those who can't cope.
cheers
fog
Comment by Tracy
Movies and Life
I can understand that you felt bad, but the whole process was scary! Like you said, hopefully they'll modify it now. There must've been other people like you. I think I would've run out the door a lot sooner!
That was quite an experience...
Tracy
Comment by Mountain Fog
Infognito
much appreciated!
cheers
fog
Comment by Tracy
Movies and Life
Have a great weekend,
Trace