Fricky frack. Raucous. Blah. God the damned. Psyche was sat at his desk. The ball of his forehead balanced on the cold metal of the table. Shit man? Fuck? Ain’t it just that alarm? Clingy Clangy. Fuck off. It meant that some ratty lunatic had escaped and now it fell on Psyche to find the Goober before it did any damage to themselves or other squibs or the asylum. Or something. Psyche gave zero shits. He wanted to regain his shifty, nebulous grip on sleep. Lux can piss off man, this ain’t no life. These four walls, whoo ain’t the fabric melting?

  Still Psyche pushed his bothersome thoughts down into that sludgy spit ball of emotion he kept hidden somewhere down. He stood, reflex only, still that tired, bored version of himself stayed at the desk. The glorious disconnect. He shuffled through life, never a ripple, he was Psyche and in many ways he wasn’t. It was a mask. Still them clangy bells. That alarm.

  Psyche left his office and spilled into the monotonous, stinky lighted, hallways of the Skitzanium. This was his kingdom. Psyche the pyschopomp of Skitzanium. It was his job to find them members of society who had lost their grip on reality. He would find them and he would treat them and he’d guide them, usually swiftly, into the great unknown abyss of the ‘OtherLand’. Some called it death but Psyche weren’t too sure no more. Maybe there was something else. Who knew?

  He was dressed in his blood smeared white doctor’s coat. Heavy rubber boots slapping the oily wooden floor. Human viscera had, over time, been stomped into them woody cracks and knots so that in the dim light it glowed pinkish. All too familiar. Psyche rambled toward the right wing of the stony mansion following those damnable bells. One driven into the ceiling every four meters and connected via naked wire. They guided him to the source of the problem. He checked his belt and realised with momentary relief that he was still wearing his baton like cattle prod. Musty at the tip with old bloody crud.

  He rounded the last corner and stopped short to an assembly of like dressed nurses. He spotted little Miss Wanda. A flimsy sweet hearted lady. Her oldness scrubbed away by excessive layers of make-up which bordered on garish maybe even whorish. Sexy, soft and deep black skin. Clever hands too... he remembered them dexterous fingers rhythmically dancing on his shaft. He smiled at the thought.

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  ‘Mr Psyche?’ she asked with her thin lips. Another fond memory there.

  ‘Aye?’

  ‘Dat Goober. He-she fellah? Ain’t he gone an escaped?’

  ‘Fuck, Missy. How did that happen?’

  ‘Gone and pretended he was asleep and when we swapped him to gurney he upped and fucked right off.’

  ‘When and where?’ asked Psyche, patience grating inside his overfull cranium.

  ‘Just five minutes gone. Went down to the east side there’ she pointed in a uselessly vague direction.

  Up and at’em Mr Psyche. Them muscled legs began to beat the beat. Click and clack. Right on his back. Gonna get that bastard and bring him right back. A cough, that devilled hack. Smoky breathe. Did he forget his cigarettes? His beard swayed in step with his silky long hair. He caught the beat and settled right down there. Ain’t no thought in that.

  He passed attendants on the way. Slight nods and pointing the way the Goober had gone. He was on the track.

  A door, weren’t that conspicuous? It was slightly ajar. Ain’t no-one thick enough to leave them doors ajar. Psyche stopped. Took a breath and kicked it open.

  Ha, bingo was his nameo. That spastic Goober was huddled in the naked room. Right on that crabby bed. The cattle prod left its cradle and the well worn handle fit slap right and comfortable into Psyche’s hand. He advanced. Deadhead eyes looked at him in a panic. Lips flipped and flapped in an effort to say something. Probably useless shitty wank. Them Goober’s never said nothing worth noting and Psyche weren’t going to give him no chance.

  The prod fizzed with pent energy. Violently waiting to be unleashed on defenceless foe. Psyche was a willing pawn to its power. He laughed, gleefully, childlike - the prod extended into flesh. The Goober jack-knifed in a spastic fit. The electric cackle harmonious to screamed melody. Psyche’s remorseless eyes afire and happy. He wore it thin and the ruined mess of breathing shit sack lay inert on the floor.

  A nurse was called and Miss Wanda skittered into the room on spindle legs. She shackled the unconscious Goober and dragged him into the hallway with ant-like strength. She heaved him onto waiting gurney and wheeled back to his miserable existence.

  Psyche smiled at the morning’s exercise. He, mentally, checked off duties. Time was to be getting on and he had his appointments.