Phantom Limb

Many people believe that we experience peace when we die. Those people never died. Peace does not follow death. Rage comes. Inhuman rage that devours away thought, until nothing remains save screams.

Well . . . maybe experiences vary.

Perhaps I always felt rage, but I wouldn’t know. I can’t remember anything since the accident that killed me. This proves inconvenient, since nobody seems to remember me since the doctors brought me back to life.

I, after a bus slammed me while I crossed a street in downtown Seattle, spent three minutes technically dead and two months in a hospital.

The doctors said I would never walk again. I didn’t believe them. That’s why I walked out of their hospital.

The doctors said my memory would return. I didn’t believed them, because I couldn’t remember my name.

No wallet. My fingerprints never showed up in any database. It seemed that I sprung into existence as a thirty-something-year-old man in front of a bus (Rapid Ride B, to name the vehicle precisely).

I wash dishes now, years after the accident, at a Chinese restaurant. I live in a studio apartment above the restaurant. I call myself Jefferson, but who knows my real name?

I can feel a shape beside me, at night, when I rest on my side in bed. Someone slender, curvy. A scar. I remember a nasty scar behind a shoulder. I cannot recall which shoulder.

I can’t remember her words, but I almost remember her voice. It tastes like a word on the tip of my tongue, almost remembered . . . but not. There, but distorted beneath the surface.

Whenever I hear police sirens, a strange panic overtakes me. My heart jumps. I’m terrified for someone beside me, someone no longer there.

I recall fingers interlaced with mine. Thin fingers. Long nails that . . . do not resemble human fingernails.

I saw a flower, the strangest color, a week ago, and my breath caught in my throat. Flowers like eyes I know I saw before now. Almond eyes. They used to watch me. I know this person. I know her so damn well. I fear for her.

Who is she?

I ask her that every night, while I rest in my lonely bed. Who are you? I want to remember.

My hand precisely traces her intangible curvature, the same path every time. I can almost feel her smooth skin. Even its smell, I know.

I dated only one woman since the accident. I felt guilty the entire time, especially after I forced myself to kiss her goodnight. She wanted me to, and I did not wish to hurt her feelings.

My tongue flicked into her mouth, searched for . . . sharp teeth, like needles.

Who are you? What are you?

I can occasionally recall the phantom’s growl in my ear, feminine and inhuman. I feel warmth beside me when I walk.

Where are you? Did I abandon you, or did you abandon me?

Or have I gone mad?

Was I always mad?

How much easier that would prove? I know she was real, though. I still sense her. I know not her name.

I sleep, alone and not alone, and I dream of fangs like needles and warm breath in my ear.

Where are you?

Thanks for reading.

Daughters of Darkwana received a sweet, succinct review, which you can read here, http://www.thebookeaters.co.uk/daughters-of-darkwana-by-martin-wolt-jr/

         Also, the third book in my series, Diaries of Darkwana, will hit Kindle just as soon as I find a new cover artist. I have a few candidates already, thank goodness.

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