The steady level of ambient noise in the ward was comforting; the low murmur emanating from behind the desk at the nurses station, the sound of the meal trolleys being wheeled through the corridors. You might think a psych ward would be a mad, cacophonous place, but oddly, Benny found there were fewer voices here, as if the walls and ceilings and floors had been wiped clean of the residual suffering that was allowed to accumulate like dust in the corners and edges of rooms in ordinary homes. And except for one time early on, when one of the showerheads started to weep, he found the fixtures to
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