Lion Man

I woke up at around 10am on Saturday morning. My eyes cracked open and fuzzily glared through the crack in the curtains. I could see the blue sky and that the morning was cool and clear. I was immediately furious at myself for sleeping in. I had hoped to get up early enough to catch the sunrise after a drive over to Nendrum Monastic Site, its only about 5 miles from house. As I lay there I thought that the light scattering of low clouds would have looked beautiful two hours ago, glowing golden and pink, from the huge red ball emerging over the horizon. I’m just too lazy you see. Anyway you’d I think I would have been used to sleeping in, it happens just about everyday. I got up and walked down the corridor outside my room, feeling the cold wooden floor slightly sticking to my bare feet as I sleepily wandered to the kitchen. As always first things first, greater societies wake up call – coffee. The kettle hissed its shrill and angry shriek, and I couldn’t help but notice that it sounded angry with me too. A minute later and the whole room was infused with the warm rich scent. Even the smell of it was perking me up; it reminded me of something I read about 17 century smelling salts, which were used to wake up patients who had fainted. 

I had nothing to do that morning so I sat about and listened to music while reading ‘To A God Unknown’ by Steinbeck. When I got bored of that I looked outside at the group of Goldfinches, backlit by the low morning sun, who were getting a free meal in our garden, a birdfeeders charity, and when I got bored of that I headed back to my dim and cluttered bedroom. I have a pretty bad attention span at the moment, I can’t quite explain why. In my room I started to look through boxes of old stuff that I kept over the years. Some of the things had been acquired quite recently, like my camera shaped cufflinks I wore to my formal about 3 years ago. Other things were very old and yet at the same not that old to me, like a coin I bought from an antiques shop nearly 5 years ago. It’s a big round coin that’s over 120 years old that fascinated me. I think I paid 50 pence for a 1 penny coin, which I can’t even use anymore, what a bargain.. Other items included an old Nokia phone which proudly boasted a 1.3 megapixel camera, an old birds foot brooch with a green metal 3 leaf clover on it and a pen knife which I forced my parents to buy me when I was around 10, I remember I cut my thumb every time I tried to open it. None of this really meant anything to me, obviously the penknife had a practical use and the coin was quite interesting, but these things weren’t actually special to me. However there was one thing that was important. I found it right at the bottom under a little blue wooden airplane and next to a Barry’s token that you could use to go on rides. It was a small figure just under an inch tall of a lion standing up right with two large black fists. He seemed to have some form of silver armour on his torso, into which his mane flowed. I hadn’t seen it in many years and so I sat holding the firm plastic figure between my thumb and forefinger.  The lion’s legs and arms shining brown and ridged here and there, his face angry and snarling in a roar. I remembered what I used to call him, he was called Lion Man.

The strange thing about Lion Man is that I couldn’t remember where I bought him, nor any particular time or place where I had him with me and yet he reminded me of so much. He was a symbol of white lines, for hopping and games, sketched throughout hard concrete playgrounds, of scratched knees and the exchanging of Pokémon cards, of chasing friends in the rain across muddy grass and stained clothes. He represented uniform classrooms and short-gelled hair, football games, the PlayStation 1 and excitement over Christmas’ and Santa Clause. He was a symbol of youth. Overwhelmed by the memories that seemed to radiate out of this tiny toy, I slipped him in my pocket, and went back to my daily routine of social media, new music and TV. I sat stationary while the sharp afternoon light streamed through narrow slits in the blinds, like water from a faucet, and cast harsh lines on our cream sofa.

Later that day my dad arrived home and asked me if I wanted to go with him to visit my grandfather. My grandpa was 93 and recently had to go live in an elderly care home. I hadn’t seen him in over 4 months. On the way to the home, which was in Holywood, about a 20-minute drive away, my dad told me that grandpa was living in the EMI unit, which stands for Elderly Mentally Infirm. My dad told me this to warn me about what I should expect from my visit. I was a little apprehensive about going to see grandpa; if I’m honest I was worried about what I would say and about what I would see. I understood that a lot could change in 4 months when you’re his age. On the way there it started to rain when we were going over the hills. With green and bare wintery fields on either side, lacking their usual springtime livestock, I listened to the beating of raindrops on the windscreen. I swear the weather seemed to worsen the closer we got to the home. Talk about pathetic fallacy. We pulled up in the car park and I was a bit surprised by how few cars there were. When we got inside dad took me through to where grandpa was eating his dinner, lightly golden toast, sausage and eggs. We pulled up two chairs and dad commenced to help him eat, he carefully compiled small mounds of food on a spoon and fed it to him as a parent would feed a 1 year old. It is what it is.

Now would be a good time to tell you a bit about my grandpa. With shame I admit that I don’t know enough about him. He married my grandmother in his late 20s and together they had 3 children, my granny is still going strong at the age of 93 too. Ever since he was young he collected minerals and continued to do so throughout his life. As a result he had quite a sizable collection, of which his assortment of Irish zeolites was particularly renowned within the mineral community. He was funny man although he never laughed, but even in his later years was quick and witty. While I sat beside him I remembered that, despite the assemblage of dropped food that had accumulated on his lap and the floor around him, he was still that man. It’s an important point to keep in mind. It’s all too easy to focus on the change I had seen in him, but everyone is forever changing, even everyday, and this is just one more phase for him. 

I looked around the dining room at the other members of the home. I remember now the old, withered and wrinkly woman, characterized by her purple beret, with a whole host of sandwiches in front of her, demanding “more bread” from apparently no one. I can see the other elderly woman with her face expressing constant dismay. Her memories and reasoning declining, only those things thoroughly ingrained in her brain remained as she recited some prayer from her past, over and over like a broken record. The old man across from me, apparently named Michael, (I over heard some nurses attempting to gain his attention) who glanced around with a sad glint of confusion in his eyes, as he incessantly wiped the already clean table with an old napkin. I can remember these things, all the while a “Home Sweet Home” sign hung ironically on the wall over erroneous books with no purpose.

I paint a depressing picture. It was upsetting to see so many people at this stage of life, dependent and declining in their mental health. The time for my father and I to leave came, and when I stood up I felt something move in my pocket. I delved in and felt that solid figure lying still. I knew instantly what it was and was overcome by an odd sense of guilt. While I looked across the room at the elderly, I ran my fingers over the little plastic shape, recognizing all of its crinkles, bumps and the linear creases of its mane. The most upsetting thing was that I still had something that those people didn’t.

I had my Lion Man in my pocket.