The Mystery Man

...Pain... sharp, stabbing pain. In his ribs, his back, his head... not an inch of him that doesn't hurt... he tries to open his eyes.... VERY bad idea. More pain, but he forces them open... there is light... not natural light... suddenly he realizes... he's in a hospital... he faintly recalls the sound of screeching tires... slowly, the buzzing in his head subsides, and he can now feel he is lying down... and he can start hearing the noise around him. He didn't notice it at first, but now he can hear voices.... women... "He is such a mess, its a miracle he's still alive... Look doctor, he's trying to open his eyes...".. back into the darkness, into oblivion... In and out of consciousness he drifts. Nightmares of strange men, nightmares of a black wind howling behind him, of a beautiful woman whom he stabs in the heart, nightmares of black faces following him, laughing at him, sneering at him... the face of a man... a crow... faber est suae quisque fortunae...

The man awakens with a small groan. The same dream, again. The same nightmare he's been having for the past months. A dream he doesn't understand, and a dream he doesn't want to understand. The accident happened months ago, and left him unable to do anything. Shrugging the cardboard boxes off of him, the scratches his scraggly beard. He looks in the direction of Eliana, and makes sure she is still comfortably lying on his coat... He is soaked wet... yet again. Drawing his moth-eaten shirt about him, he slowly gets up. He grunts softly. His ribs still hurt like a b###h, and the cold isn't helping much. He ignores it, as he's been ignoring everything else his body as been yelling at him. He knows he has a fever, and his cough has been getting worse.

" So what?", he thinks. He walks to the end of the alley, down to where the trash is. He can't tell if the horrid smell is coming from the flie-infested dump, or from him. Again, he ignores it, and rummages through the filth to find something edible. After a few minutes, he finds a half eaten hamburger that some worms have started feasting on. He makes sure he gets everyone of them out of it. He looks a little more, and finds a half eaten apple, and even a box of Fruit Gushers. Eliana's favorite.

He walks back to his makeshift house, and sits down. He grabs the bottle of water, and makes sure he thouroughly washes the food. He slowly nudges Eliana, and gently wakes her up. Softness that seems so out of place for a man whose face seems to be made of hard planes.

The little girl moans something, and wakes up, he hair disheveled, and bleary eyed. She scratches her eyes, and yawns. She then smiles at the man, and snuggles up to him. The man smiles and ruffles her hair. He grabs the food, and hands her the apple first. Before taking a bite, she looks at him with a frown on her face.

Eliana: What about you? Have you eaten?

Man: yes, before you woke up. Now, eat. I have a surprise for you.

She beams a smile at him, and devours the apple very quickly. He watches her eat, and sees the juice drip down her chin in her haste. He gives her a semi-clean cloth so she can wipe her chin clean. He then hands her the half eaten burger, and it disappears as fast as the apple. He then produces the Fruit Gushers. She squeals in delight, and gives him a big hug. He doesn't let her see him wince in pain. She grabs the pack from him, and eats them with genuine delight.

Poor girl, she's been through so much, he thinks. She is strong though, very strong. She had been in so many shelters. He remembers the night he found her. She had run away from a shelter, and had her teddy bear in one hand, and a small blanket in the other. She was in an alley, and an old bum was trying to steal the blanket from her. She was trying to fend for herself with a small broken bottle she had found, but the older man had managed to grab it from her. He was closing in on her, when the bum felt a hand close around his throat. Joe, as he called himself, had come barely in time. He had grabbed the bum by the throat, and, as if it came naturally to him, he drove the man to the floor with crushing force. He had been like another man. So angry at everything...

A coughing fit cuts his line of thought, and he tries to restrain it, but his whole body doubles over as he spits out some blood. Her happy face turns into a mask of worry as she cleans the blood from his chin. He gently, but firmly, stops her. She huffs muttering something about stubborn men, but he can see the fear she holds for him in her eyes. She's the only one who doesn't ask questions about who he is, and yet she loves him as a father. Even if she asked, he wouldn't be able to answer. He doesn't remember anything from his past. All of it is just jumbled memories. They had "let him go" from the hospital as he had no form of ID, or anything to say who he was, or where he was from. "Just a regular bum" is what he had been called. He had roamed aimlessly in these streets. What was he doing here? Who was he and where was he going?

Which brings him back to thinking about the dream. That face. The crow. It had never been there before. It had a sense of familiarity to it. Who is that? He should know. A friend, or a foe? He doesn't know. Not a friend... but yet, someone he can trust. Who IS that person? A name hovers on the edge of his memory... John... Joe... Jack... Jared... No, it's Jack. Jack what? It doesn't matter. Jack. He knows Jack. Who the hell is this Jack. And where did that last whisper in the dream come from... A woman's voice. "Each man is the smith of his own fortune". Yes, that's what it meant. But where did that come from.

He gently told Eliana to sleep. She nodded absently, as she yawned. She promptly lay back down and fell asleep. He kept thinking some more about this dream and this face... From the dark, dusty alley, he could see the street. Throngs of people continually filled these sidewalks, be it day or night. The tumult they made and the constant noise no longer bother Joe. He had become used to it, and it slid off of him easily.

Lost in his thoughts, he only barely registered the blue city bus going by. On its side, a panel held a commercial, and the picture of a man. And the face on it showed that same face he saw in the dream. The same twisted face, filled with sorrow and contempt, filled with power and an air of something beyond. The face of someone he should seek out. Someone who might have answers for him. The name beneath it shook him to his very foundations. He KNEW that man. *Scene Fades to black*

"Sure, I'm crazy. But that used to mean something. Now, everyone's crazy."
- Charles Manson