The Therapy Zone

     A place where a chemist lives like a hermit in a cave beyond the confines of The Village. He plays with his chalk, making scientific formulae on a blackboard, and in his spare time he distils hooch! A place where one can be an alcoholic in perfect privacy, just as long as you rejoin the flock in good time. Are we to believe the words of Number 2, his toast to "hell with The Village?" A little drop now and then keeps the nerves steady. He doesn’t give the outward impression of being an alcoholic, he doesn’t give the impression that he’s in need of a drink at any time. Number 6, now he’s a man of a different calibre altogether, he needs a drink, in fact he’ll have a double any time, and without water. Not surprising really, not after all the Prisoner has gone though up until now. Non-alcoholic whisky just doesn’t hit the spot. A night out at the Cat and Mouse nightclub didn’t do much at all for him, “No alcohol here sir. Gin, whisky, vodka looks the same tastes the same.” Except he was giving the impression of being intoxicated, so if it wasn’t the drink, it must have been the drugs being forced fed to him somehow, perhaps ironically through the tap water!
   But it’s all part of the game. There is no Therapy Zone. No chemist living the life of a hermit beyond the confines of The Village. How do we know this? Because by the time of ‘Dance of the Dead,’ when the Prisoner puts the dead body he found on the shore into the cave, despite being paved with flagstones, it is unoccupied. The chemist having long since departed the cave, in all probability soon after Number 6 was taken from the cave and put to bed in his cottage having been rendered unconscious by the drug which is to exact proportions to see him through the rest of the election.
   The location of the Therapy Zone might be different to the cave in 'Dance of the Dead,' but the interior is the same. As for the chemist, Number 6 encounters this man again in 'Once Upon A Time.' He stops the man in the Piazza and says "How." "Don't do that" the man says, looking about him nervously. "What?" asks Number 6. "Enquire" the man replies. But Number 6 persists "What's your number?" "What?" "Your number. What is it?" "Be careful" the man warns. Then Number 6 begins to count 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16...........

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