Nima One Afternoon 1967.

I watched a trustee patient walking out in the grounds of the asylum, Nima said, as he walked along the narrow road that leads up to the asylum. The sky was a bright blue with a few clouds drifting by. I envied him being out there free of these walls and not stuck inside the locked ward. She stood at the window of her private room, off the locked ward, smoking a cigarette which her father brought the day before. Her father, a doctor, had paid for the private room to keep her away from the crazies. They had rowed, but nothing bad. After he had gone she stood at the window and watched his car drive off down the narrow road and out of the gates at the far end. I felt abandoned in this hell, Nima said, like a child left at a boarding school, but this was worse. When the cleaner came in this morning and said she had to change the bedding and tidy up the room, did I mind? She was kind and after she did what she had to do, we shared cigarettes and stood by the window, talking. I told her more than I told the shrink. She gave me a hug and went off. The trustee patient sat on one of the wooden benches by the road, playing with himself. Sanity is rare. Sanity is private wealth.