All The Precious Souls

Who Am I?

"A Sad Soul is always up past Midnight."

  Three years ago, I woke up with only a meloncholy quote in my useless brain. No name, no birthdate, No fucking clue where in Gods name I was. Split knuckles, fresh cuts up and down my body, brain damage that caused the memory loss. I thought I'd go completely insane if one more person told me it would just take time. Time, time, time, time. I hate that word. After six months of John Doe this and John Doe that and no answers on my life, I gave up searching for answers. I made myself. How many people can say they got to choose their birthdate, consiously? Doctors estimated I was roughly twenty-five, so I decided to keep it simple. January 1st. New year, new age.
    In the three years of life I could remember, I'd changed my appearence drasticly. Tattoos covered most of the bigger scars from a life I never knew. Short, blonde hair was replaced with black dye and grown out to my shoulders. I'd recently taken to shaving the under side. I hit the gym four nights a week due to insomnia. I had been a larger man in a different sense, three years ago. My hospital chart had said I was 6'3" and 300 lbs, i had been throughly disgusted by the appearence of me, though I couldn't tell why. I had let myself go this far.
   Sweat poured down the front of my shirt. On the nights, I didn't hit the gym I often ran until my lungs screamed and my legs felt like I was trudging through knee deep mud. The Motor city still hums at night, making it easier to be awake this late. I had thought I lived here before the accident and had decided to ask around for information from the neighbors but no one had recognized me in the slightest. One of the older doctors had offered to let me occupy a rental of his to heal since it seemed I had no where else. I took to the night life easily and made my wage pouring drinks for college kids. Though most of them are around my age, I still feel many years their senior. I had also taken to fixing the two story rental for my landlord. Took a couple hundred off my rent and gave me something to keep my mind occupied, especially from numerous weird and unexplained occurences since I woke up.
  The first one was while I was still in the hospital. I had paniced and grabbed a nurse by the throat when she went to draw blood. No one had expected me to wake up as quickly as I had, by all means I should have been in a coma for months, but here I was less than ten hours after being scraped off the side of the bar, the same bar I currently find myself employed at, awake and strong enough to choke a nurse. I found out later she'd died of an unexplained heart attack two days later. She was twenty-nine. The next day, I had been released from the hospital with instructions on how to care for myself and an offer to stay in a rental. When I arrived at a place I doubted I'd ever really call home, I found this alarmingly beautiful butterfly laying at the doorstep. A large Menelaus Morpho, as I later discovered, with irredescent wings of a brillant, and slightly unnatural looking blue.  The beautiful creature was dead and mummified at the enterance of my new dwelling. I'd picked it up and decided to frame it. To admire the beauty of something so innocent.
   Since then, whenever my panic seemed to spike, the closest person to my physically seemed to always end up dead. Always a heart attack, Always a few days later, Always a butterfly at the doorstep. The collection of butterflies hanging on the wall of my bedroom served as a personal reminder to keep my emotions in check. Since the Menelaus Morpho, I had added a White Morpho, two Adonis Morphos, A Common Blue Morpho and Four Cypris Morphos. Nine beautiful souls sat on my wall as punishment for losing control.
  While the butterflies are sad and weird, weirder still was the simple fact I couldn't keep any kind of plant alive, except for poppies. Roses? Withered and died instantly. Tulips? Took a few days and ended smelling like rotten meat. Poppies? Brightly colored and lasting. After finding the first butterfly, A single, pure white poppy had appeared in the snow in the back yard of the house. I'd clipped it the morning after and decided to keep it in a small vase on the window sill. There it sat, three years later looking as vibrantly white as the day I'd found it in the freshly crystal like snow. Poppies grew in the hanging baskets in front of my house now that it was spring, but all came inside for winter since they too seemed to be undying. I had wasted six months of my new life head buried. Looking for answers for questions without context.
     I quickly showered after my run. Washing my hair with a citrus smelling shampoo and conditioner that the lady at Walgreens swore was manly smelling. Not that I particularly cared if I smelled like a woman or not. The ink adorning my left arm was a patch work of traditional works, while my right was a black and white piece that depicated Death as I saw him. The Grim reaper's scythe wrapped from my inner elbow to the curve of my shoulder, hidden slightly behind pretty pictures of horror. The weapon behind the never ending horror of the world. The represented fear of everyone, the fear of dying. The cold, icy colored eyes that stared at me from the steam covered mirror grew colder as I took in the scars across my toned, muscular stomach. The ones I kept because they were faint and hardly noticable by anyone but myself. Golden tipped feathers peaked out from the swell of the towel wrapped around my waist, giving way to a full back piece. Black wings the fade to golden tipped feathers. I'd taken to braiding my hair into a knot on the top of my head to keep it from getting in my eyes as I worked. I rifled through my collection of black tees before pulling on a vee neck that hugged around my chest and arms. I pulled on a pair of low slung jeans and my black work boots. I found myself messing with the rings in the side of my nose as I walked through the house toward the attached garage.
  The only thing I truly put some thought into was my car. Michigan doesn't exactly handle flashy sports cars well in the winter, so I'd orginally bought a medium sized truck, one I still used in the winter and snow. I climbed in the front seat of my stark white Challenger, wondering if Cammie would be sitting at the bar again and how best it would be to avoid the tiny blonde who couldn't seem to take the polite rejection I'd given her a few weeks back. Squealing the tires as I took off from my driveway, I build up the nice guy act I always put on in the hole in the wall bar.
   I pull in five minutes to midnight blaring I Miss the Misery by Halestorm. What can I say? I'm apparently a sucker for a female rocker. The parking lot is jam packed already but that's normal for a friday night. I tuck my phone in the front pocket of my jeans, ducking into the back door.
   "Pretty girl out front that looks your type. Makes all the Daddies money spending rich girls look like second best. I came to grab you before she could order." Cameron means well but the sap is always trying to hook me up with someone. None of them are ever my type and most repulse me.
  "Thanks man, I'll head out there, I guess." I grumble back to him as I head for the door leading to the dance floor situated next to the bar itself. The bass-boosted verion of Panoramic by Dmac has half the bar shaking their ass in a way that I'm sure their parents wouldn't approve of and the other half watching with eyes the size of Jupiter. Bright red hair leaning with her back against the bar rail damn near bites me with how quickly it jumps to my attention.
"What can I get for you to drink, Darling?" I regret the words even as I say them. The pure terror mixed with murderous rage is clearly written across her emerald green eyes.
  "Stay Away from me you abusive son of a bitch." A full bottle of tequila slips from my hands as I watch this beautiful woman run from my bar. She knows me? I question even as I chase after her. I need to know. I need to know who she is to me.