Author Description

This story is about a young man who is sent to Vietnam and returns home safely. However, since he almost died in the war, he has constant nightmares and he keeps seeing death all around him. As he grows older, and throughout his life, he goes through a series of emotions from one extreme to the other. He believes God will never forgive him for killing people. He keeps seeing the ghost of a certain Vietnamese man, over and over. It is one of the enemy soldiers he killed. The ghost shows up at different times and the nightmares are constant. He even experiences other unexplainable spirits. Everywhere he goes ghosts are present whether it's in Europe, Mexico, or Texas, his home state. He knows he has Post Traumatic Stress Disorder but he can't shake it and so he asks himself why he exists, and maybe it's time to end it. He feels guilty because he lived and his buddies didn't. He even searches into his family ancestry looking for answers. However, as time passes and because of his love for nature, in particular the Monarch butterfly, his life finally starts to have meaning. He believes he has gone insane, but yet he thinks that since a butterfly saved his life in Vietnam, again the Monarch butterfly can save him from a total breakdown in his old age.