The Man They Called A Lunatic

The Man They Called A Lunatic

The nurses ran and rallied round,
the new man screamed coming through the door,
every patient turned in fear,
as Gary fell upon the floor.
He pulled his knees up to his chest,
and buried deep his frightened head,
while some of the other patients shook,
and quickly scrambled back to bed.

Some disappeared beneath their blankets,
some stared through frightened eyes,
but nobody knew the story
behind that poor man’s desperate cries.
They only saw a broken stranger,
a man that fear had brought to his knees,
but nobody stopped to wonder why,
or what terrible things his mind could see.

He never thought in all his life,
he’d be locked away for lunacy,
behind those doors and iron beds,
where nobody outside could see.
His problem wasn’t madness,
his problem was fear, you see,
and somewhere inside that terrified man,
was the person he used to be.

The doctor came with an injection,
another stood with tablets near,
I watched poor Gary raise his eyes,
and all I could see was fear.
The needle went into his arm,
and his eyes filled up with rain,
and I wondered how many tears he’d cried,
before they ever called him insane.

Within a while his breathing slowed,
the screaming disappeared,
he breathed gently through his nose,
although his eyes were wet with tears.
We lifted him onto an iron bed,
pulled the blankets to his chin,
put the old metal rails upright,
and quietly tucked him in.

I left a beaker of orange juice,
upon the little table there,
because sometimes it’s the smallest things
that tell somebody you care.
Not medicine, not clever words,
not a doctor’s solemn smile,
just knowing when you wake again,
somebody stayed a while.

He woke sometime that evening,
and looked straight through at me,
there was something in those tired eyes
that nobody else could see.
I held the drink towards his lips,
his trembling hand met mine,
and for the first time since he’d arrived,
Gary seemed almost fine.

I sat beside his rusty bed,
and gently held his hand,
I didn’t ask him where he’d been,
or try to understand.
I simply said, “Come on, Gary,
let’s be silent for a while,
you don’t have to tell me anything.”
And slowly came a smile.

“You’ll get some help, they’ll give you pills,
and maybe before too long,
you’ll walk back through those doors again,
to where you once belonged.”
He never answered very much,
but his fingers tightened around mine,
and something passed between us then,
that needed neither words nor time.

His face was worn, his fingers rough,
like rust upon those rails,
his eyes held stories never told,
of storms and frightened tales.
Yet underneath the tangled hair,
the panic and the fear,
there was simply somebody’s son,
who desperately needed somebody near.

Then I went away on leave,
a little holiday for me,
three weeks away from iron beds,
locked doors and cups of tea.
But strangely, while I was away,
Gary crossed my mind each day,
and I wondered if he’d found his smile,
and whether he’d gone home to stay.

The morning that I came back in,
I hardly put my handbag down,
before I walked along the ward
and started looking around.
“Where’s Gary?” I asked with a smile,
expecting good news that day.
One of the nurses lowered her eyes.
“I’m sorry. Gary’s gone away.”

“Oh, good,” I said. “He’s better then.
I knew he’d not be here for long.”
But nobody smiled back at me,
and suddenly something felt wrong.
“No,” she whispered quietly,
“he didn’t make it home.”
And in that ward of crowded beds,
I’d never felt so alone.

Gary had ended his life
while I had been away.
No long goodbye, no final words,
nothing left for me to say.
I looked towards his empty bed,
the rusty rails still there,
and remembered that frightened man
who only needed someone to care.

People called that place a lunatic ward,
and called the people inside insane,
but I learned something from Gary
that has never left me again.
Behind every frightened pair of eyes,
there is somebody’s untold story,
and sometimes the ones we call broken
are simply tired of carrying their pain.

So when you see somebody struggling,
don’t turn your eyes away.
Sit beside them if they’ll let you,
even if you’ve nothing clever to say.
Because Gary once held onto my hand,
and for one little while he knew—

He wasn’t a lunatic in my eyes.

He was simply Gary.

And Gary mattered too.