慘綠人生 2017.01.20Winkpen

A Miserable “Green” Life
Wink Pen  2017.01.20.

The sight of a new client in the pacification ward always makes me feel deeply sorry for their near future - they are going to be confined in a ward with filthy smell, inadequate ventilation and sanitation until they become “emotionally stable” and additional guard and control are no longer needed. Legs are still shackled. The face, being out of the sun for too long, is turning pale, or even green, just like the green walls. “Miserable green” is not intended for such an expression but I’m at my wit’s end and can’t find a suitable word for the situation he’s in.

Green tarpaulin covers the yellow foam pasted on the walls in the pacification ward, which is a standard specification to keep inmates from self-mutilation and self-injury. Does it work? No necessarily. There was a pacification ward in Taitung. Years ago a psychotic inmate hit the toilet bowl with his head and then took a sharp broken piece to cut himself. The prison removed the bowl and covered the feces pit with an army blanket. The ward was then filled with free particles of the smell from the septic tank underneath. The self-mutilating inmate couldn’t find anything to cut himself but another psychotic went mad. He lifted the blanket and started eating feces.

每次看到鎮靜室來了新客戶,心裡總是無比感慨,接下來的日子他們就得待在這間氣味、通風及衛生皆不佳的牢房裡,直到他們「情緒穩定」,無戒護安全之顧為止,腳上還鎖著腳鐐,那缺乏日照而日益蒼白的臉,開始反射出牆面的綠色時,雖然明知道「慘綠」兩字不該這麼用,但我還是真想不出能用什麼詞彙來形容這樣的處境⋯⋯ 為了防止收容人自殘自傷,牆面貼滿黃色泡棉,泡棉表面再糊上綠色的帆布,這是鎮靜室的標準規格,但有用嗎?未必,多年前台東某單位的鎮靜室,就因一個用腦門和馬桶比硬,又拿馬桶碎片自傷的精神病患,而把馬桶全拆了,只用一條軍毯蓋在屎坑上,化糞池的臭味也就自自冉冉瀰漫著,自殘的收容人是沒東西拿來劃自己了,可另一個精神病患發了病,卻掀開毯子挖糞往嘴裡送⋯⋯

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