Saturday, April 28, 2012

HELPLESS IN THE NIGHT WORLD

They did not even keep us together. Everything was so planned, so organized. This was how they did it and they'd been doing it like this for years. The heavy, windowless vehicle came to a stop in the middle of a courtyard. Every surface was covered with dark, almost black lead panels bolted into place by thick, brutal nails, seemingly left over from countless Roman crucifixions. Do you know what it looked like?..... Like a seventeenth century attempt to mimic the early industrial age. The walls were covered. I know there were doors hidden among the cold, hard panels. But I could not tell where they were. Nor could I fly up over the ramparts and escape, for the heavens were blocked by a fine, gauzy, membrane....a chiffon made from thin filaments of  that vampiric krypton known as lead. 


The master just threw back his head and laughed. Not the laugh he used around humans, but his real laugh.... his life-eater laugh. And the hundreds of  black robed functionaries arrayed before us shuddered at the strength of it. But they held their ground and not a torch was dropped. Then a leader came forth, a thin man, dressed like the others, save for the addition of a blood red collar rising up above the neckline of his simple garment. He stopped roughly three of four cubits from the back end of the conveyance, much closer than humans normally come to a full grown, powerful, male vamperino. No one said a word. The leader looked up and studied his newest acquisitions. Then he snapped his fingers. Men appeared bearing heavy robes fashioned from small, carefully made lead mail. A garment for knights in hell. He said - Put these on............... So as we would have no doubt about our fate should we fail to obey, two score warrior  giants came up behind him, each holding bucket-like cauldrons of steaming pitch. And the torch bearers moved in too....... I started to cry....... The dominee said one word - Don't!....... I stopped.......... The leader said - Help them with the net!........ Others approached pushing a small, wheeled stairway. You have the like today to help old dogs climb on beds, except most opt for the tan, upholstered variety, whereas ours was more funereal. After a few moments, we managed to climb down and they respectfully removed the heavy net, rolled it up and carried it away.  I was trembling. The master put his arm around me. The leader sneered and whispered - Move away from the girl......... My creator hesitated, but a practiced gob of hot, black pitch arced through the air and kissed his ear, persuading him of his error. He stepped away. We put on the leaden robes and waited. Resistance was futile.


Then, as if on cue, an aisle opened before us. The leader gestured. And we slowly walked toward what proved to be a door, as it slid open affording entrance to a narrow, lead paneled corridor. Were it not for the torch bearers behind us, even we would have been blind. 


They put each of us into a cell. In truth the dimensions were more like cabinets than cells. And the hard accommodations were not in the least bit adjacent. I'd say they were fifty of your American yards apart. That's how big the place was. So we waited, encased in that most noxious metal and sealed off from the sky.


But I could hear them whispering. Or perhaps it was a form of telepathy. Sensory deprivation sharpens such abilities. They dickered about my fate. A certain emissary sent from the court of the Persian king, the shah in Isfahan, offered a ransom more precious than rubies for the deliverance of a fresh, young, elfin vampirina. Apparently he had a spot for me in his menagerie. Those of  you familiar with our tale may recall the imprisonment of the one known as 'Papa.' I suppose it would have been like that. Yet negotiations proved unsuccessful and I was dealt with another way.........


That's where the whales came in..........


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