Something a little different... "The Crazies"

It always makes me laugh, but I didn't actually believe I was crazy
until I got to the nuthouse and everybody there started making a lot
more sense than anyone on the outside. That's the thing about crazy
people, though. They have their own sense of logic. It's just as fixed
as ours, they're just more open to the possibilities to begin with.
I've never really fitted in here, not least because I'm not pansexual,
but more because of the creeping pretension about insanity. Most of the
crazy people think I'm too sane to be here, and worry that I might
saturate their advanced thinking with my grounding in conventional
reality.

This is how I met Tyler Gibson, the oldest fruitcake in the place at
that point, who was similarly ostracised by the madness elite. They
didn't like Tyler because he actually behaved like he was nuts. He was
the kind of crazy person that normal people feel comfortable with,
because they can point fingers at the weird guy doing strange things
and then write him off. Unlike myself, Tyler only ever heard one voice.
"It's hard to tell you're mad when the craziest voice you hear is your
own," he told me once when we were sitting outside. Thus Tyler
accounted for how he'd spent sixty five years of his life living with
normal people not knowing he was round the bend.

I have to sympathise. I can't remember a time when I haven't heard
voices. I once had a thought that they might have been there with me in
the womb, before I even had the ears to hear them, and promptly laughed
out loud. I got a few strange looks for that. "Just the voices again,
telling me jokes," I say, just to annoy the crazies. But the truth is,
the voices weren't talking to me then. They hadn't spoken to me in
hours at that point, and didn't speak to me again until the next day.
It happens like that sometimes.

"Can you tell me how many different voices you can hear?"

This is one of Doctor Fender's favourite questions. It's one I can't
answer, because I usually only ever hear each voice once, but the last
time he asked it I just said, "Actually, doctor, it just sounds like
you every time." He smiled, but made a note of it anyway. Making
self-conscious jokes about your own mental state is a sure sign of a
cure, so I was hoping they might let me out. After all, Doctor Fender
has talked to enough mad people to know they're deadly serious about
their conversations with lampshades and the like. In fact, if you ever
see a crazy person laugh whilst talking to a lampshade, it's unlikely
to be because they're aware how daft they look - it's more likely the
lampshade's just told them a funny joke. Sad, but true.

I for one have never had a conversation with a lampshade. For a long
time, I tried not to have conversations with the voices at all. I used
to, back when I was the seventeen year old who still had imaginary
friends. It was only after I came to this place that I started to
consciously ignore them, and after that they left me alone for a while.
Doctor Fender claimed this was due to the drugs and the therapy, and
even had the bloody cheek to claim I was making it up when one suddenly
decided to speak to me again on the day he wanted to send me home. I do
wonder sometimes whether that man is on the right side of the fence.
There are crazy people in this place without as cracked a sense of
logic.

The problem with Doctor Fender is that he likes to find patterns in
everything. His specialty, as far as I am concerned, is finding
patterns where there aren't any. He's a scientist. He sees craziness as
a mathematical problem, and even then only sees the problem in terms of
its solution. Drugs plus therapy leads to sanity equals cure. He was
never going to believe I had started hearing a new voice on my way out
the door back into the real world. For him, that was a variable that
did not factor into his equations. Sometimes I do think they should let
crazy people treat each other. It takes a crazy person to really
understand another crazy person, and whilst Doctor Fender is a little
flipped, he's just not sufficiently nuts to qualify.

Of course, if all crazy people are as precious about their insanity as
this bunch in here, expecting them to treat themselves is-

"Can you hear me?"

This is how they usually come to me. That's why it was no surprise when
one started speaking to me even after Doctor Fender was satisfied he'd
cured me. He couldn't predict it happening simply because it can't be
predicted.

"Yes, I can hear you," I say. "Who are you?"

As per usual, it sounds like I'm on the telephone with this guy. I can
only hear him through one ear, and he sounds at once distant and right
beside me. There was this one time when I was actually on the phone
with someone when a voice interrupted. I got so confused as to which
was which that when I put the phone down I still expected to be talking
to the person I'd hung up on. The voice was grumpy with me after I'd
tried to get rid of him and pestered me for a whole weekend.

"My name is Greg," the voice continues. "Greg Ibanez."

"What do you want, Greg?"

"I want you to do something for me," he says.

They always do.

I first realised I wasn't in the slightest bit crazy not too long ago,
just after Doctor Fender released Tyler Gibson. Tyler had always been
Doctor Fender's favourite inmate as well as my own, mainly because he
was such a clear-cut psychotic. He wanted to be cured, so he didn't
hide anything, he welcomed the drugs and looked forward to therapy.
Unlike the rest of us, he came here of his own accord, and unlike the
rest of us, his wasn't a happy craziness. I look at most of the people
here and they're happy wallowing in this group delusion that their
affliction makes them superior human beings. For them, their craziness
is at the core of their identity, and they're not going to be robbed of
that just so they can live settled lives amongst the proletariat. Most
of all, they enjoy the fight. Tyler wasn't like that. It had taken him
decades, but he'd finally realised why he wasn't happy, right at the
same moment when he realised that the voice in his head wasn't his
own.

Doctor Fender was convinced he'd cured Tyler when the old man stopped
ignoring practically everybody else and started talking to the rest of
the crazies, even when they didn't talk back - especially when they
didn't talk back. I believe Doctor Fender secretly considers
patronising another nut-job proof of sanity, even though he never does
it himself. Tyler had spent a lifetime ignoring people, first because
the voice had told him to presumably, and then lately because he feared
any voice he heard might still be his own.

I stood at the gate and watched him go. He was back in three
weeks.

There aren't any wards here. Each room has no more than three beds but
the room I shared with Tyler only has two. In the time Tyler had been
away, Doctor Fender hadn't found anyone to fill his bed., so it was
ready waiting for him when he reappeared one evening. I didn't hear
them bring him back in. I blame that on the tranquillisers. I'm not
restless at night, so they don't give me a large dose. They usually
wear off around four, so I often stir at about half past before
promptly falling back asleep naturally. The night on which Tyler
returned, however, I didn't go back to sleep. I hear his whispering in
the darkness.

"Tyler?" I whispered back.

At first I thought it was another of my voices. Not only do they
interrupt me on the phone or ask me if I'm busy whilst I'm in the
shower but they also like to come and wake me up at night.

"You're awake," he said.

"Tyler? Is that you?"

"Yes. It's me."

"What are you doing back here?"

"Came to see you."

"Came to? Why?"

"I realised something on the outside."

"Tyler?"

"They're all wrong in here, you know."

"Who?"

"The basket cases."

"What about?"

"They can be cured."

"I know that, Tyler."

"I know you do, I know you do."

"Tyler?"

"Yes?"

"Are you sick again?"

"No. No. I'm fine now. I'm cured."

When I woke up in the morning, they'd moved Tyler out again. I went
looking for him in all the normal places we would often sit together.
He'd sounded strange during the night and I was worried. Eventually I
went to Doctor Fender himself and demanded to know where Tyler was. I
suppose in retrospect that proved to him I really was as crazy as I
made out. He told me Tyler hung himself a week ago, patted me on the
head and threw me a doggie treat.

I'm sitting with him now.

"Greg Ibanez wants you to tell his wife he still loves her," I tell
him. "Her name is Fiona. She lives at Flat 6, The Arcadias? I can't
remember the town, though. It was somewhere in West Sussex."

Doctor Fender writes something on his pad, but to be honest I wouldn't
be surprised if he's already forgotten Greg's surname.

"Can we talk about Tyler Gibson?" he asks me.

"Why?" I ask.

I haven't heard from Tyler since the week he died.

"I think it's important," he explains. "I think we need to try and
understand why he couldn't cope back in the real world."

I already know why, and I didn't need Tyler to explain. I've often
wondered what the world would be like without the voices. I guess Tyler
found out.