TUNA FISH SANDWICH WITH A VAMPIRE BUDDY

Papa sits out back of the Chestnut Hill house with Edith. She came back. It's not that she doesn't return to The Pines every few weeks. They're only forty miles away. But she feels things. She knows. So she sits there eating her tuna fish sandwich on whole wheat bread. She sips her sweet tea (her South Jersey, Piney home is more like Dixie than anywhere else. they even grow yucca palms outside shore houses near the coast) and talks. Her twenty eight thousand year old dinner partner nods. They get along really well. If you looked at them, you'd take her for his aunt or something. He appears to be about thirty two or thirty three years old. That's how many human years he had when they brought him over. So he does not partake of any mortal nourishment. His 'meal' consists of a 'sea grass' aroma candle. If you read this on a regular basis, you know how much store the vampires set on fancy smells. Edith or one of the Red Paint people who came back with her (two older men), pick them up for him at the Target, or CVS.

What? You want to know who else is in the house? Well, let's see. They got a few 'elves' (children on the cusp of puberty) runnin' round, plus a flock a 'cherubs' (new born to toddler vampires) flyin' all over the place. They ain't got no wings, but that don't stop 'em from flitting 'round real good. Elves is good fliers too. The older vampires not so much. One a the elves, Roland, I think it is, went over to the Holy Land to help bring peace, love annd brotherhood to the world. Papa 'transported' him, otherwise he'd a have to hitch a ride on a whale. Actually, they sink their teeth into the hide. That's how vampires, I mean life-eaters cross the sea. But this elf didn't want to go that way, so Papa just went boink and shot him right over there. He disappeared on Glengary Road (Their street in Chestnut Hill) and fizzled into existance on a busy  corner  one evening near The Western Wall of the ancient Temple Mount.

Papa helps the contingent they got over in Israel and Ishmael (his name for the Palestinian areas in what used to be Transjordan). But when you get down to it, he takes a more micro view a things. Sure, he wants  to improve humanity, only in his heart he likes to do it one son of a bitch at a time. Yes, he did 'broadcast' that 'I am the Unity' dream to about six hundred million mortals. But he only did it because his son, his vampire son, Jonathon wanted it. Not that the spruce. little, thosand year old Andalucian ever said anything. A father just knows.

Doctor Franklin is comin' over in a bit. I think Papa plans to take him out to visit the manta ray people on Europa (Jupiter's largest water world...for real). They swim around spoutin' advanced philosophies and all. That's a thing Papa does. Takin' his friends out to meet 'em, I mean.

Oh, come on! I can't believe you are askin' that. You know who I am, or at least the regulars do. It's me. It's Zebulon, your faithful disembodied spirit. And you will have to excuse me. But I wanna float over to that all-you-can-eat Golden Corral place they got runnin' 'round on Route 309. All that chompin' and slurpin' goin' on makes me feel like I'm eatin' that stuff. Annd sometimmes I do miss the sensation.

Oh, yeah, before I forget. Baylah is playin' vampire poker tonight. It's her way a helpin' them poor folk they got bunkin' under the Boardwalk pull things back together after the hurricane and all. She is a regular Atlantic City Angel, that one is.....Google VAMPIREWONDERLAND  and the keyword VAMPIRE POKER. You'll find out what it means. Now lemme go get me some crunchy little pieces a  that tasty popcorn shrimp.