Wednesday, December 3, 2014

The Wee Hours of December 3rd In Philadelphia ... 12/3/14

Tomas slept. He lay wrapped in the sheets and he slept. A nurse came in to check his vitals... all within acceptable parameters. The room is dim. There are no external windows, but as is the case with many underground, 'Bureau' chambers, artificial windows (basically extreme high definition panels dressed to look like windows) provide 'views' of an outside world. 

Sarah, his consort, sits in a chair watching silent talking heads on @TMZ. Then she gazes out the window, taking in the exquisitely rendered Jacksonian scene.... eighteen twenties Philadelphia by twilight. Carriages bounce past in the deepening gloom. Lamplighters, carrying long, match-like poles and four sided, glassed in lanterns, go about their rounds igniting wicks in oil-filled street lights. Squirrels scamper about leaving embroidery-like tracks on a dusting of snow. A woman hurries by, dragging a dawdling child. She turns toward the people in the room, as if she can see them. The Anti-Enchantment Bureau has unmatched technology, if that's even the right word for it. 

Doctor Franklin, dressed in his favorite uniform, a green Eagles sweatsuit, glides into the room upon one of his battery powered scooters. He stops by the foot of the bed and says - How is he?.... The same - says Sarah. He mumbles. His eyelids flutter. He gets restless. Changes position.... Luna's been in (a vampire physician and Sarah's one time rival). She tapped some tubes, scanned the monitors and left. Sarah gave her a weak smile and got one back. They can be civil when they have too.

Franklin says - Come Sarah, take a break.... She follows him out of the room and down the hall toward a small snack bar. They go to the counter. Franklin addresses the girl. He says - Hello, Brittany. I'll have a diet coke and a large sweet potato fries and she'll take a cold, clarified cider...... Vampires can tolerate beverages, provided they're thin and watery. Sarah likes the smell of apples. She enjoys it. Buys green apple aroma candles whenever she can. Skinny guy at Yankee Candle knows her by name. Does he know she's a vampire? Some people who deal with them know. Some don't know. It's always been like that. 

Sarah turns the pages of an OK MAGAZINE. People leave them on the tables. Seems the British Queen has a real good way to make bread pudding. Makes it for herself and her husband on 'off nights.' Buckingham Palace is like a big ornate hotel. Ain't got no casino. Who knows? Maybe it does, down the basement or someplace. Queen has an apartment. Don't know how many toilets they give her. That's like a secret. Says she got a nice kitchen,though. Sarah closes the magazine and says - What will he remember... about the procedure... about... being dead?..... Doctor Franklin says - I don't know.... We got his ashes. And you know, I mean more than just dried ashes. I mean the greasy residue. All of it. We got it right away. They say life-eaters,  who die suddenly, revisit their remains. They say a lot of things. I know more than my share, but not everything. Did he survive as coherent energy? Call it a soul. I'm not adverse to that. I'm a Deist. God 'is.' You do the math. Yes, he did survive. And it took a long time to get him, shall we say, 'settled,'. We had him in a 'soul' pod even before we got a body. And what's a soul, energy, a quantum field? We bombarded him with images even then. Is this a precise science? No. One day it will be, but not now. We were just lucky. We were very lucky. And the information we got from that place in Russia was invaluable...... But, now we have him back? - asked Sarah..... Yes - said the Doctor. Now we have him back.

She sipped her cider and whispered - He looks so fragile... Doctor Franklin said - Because he's mortal. You've never seen him that way.

Sarah broke down - I want him back. I want him the way he was....... We all do - said the Doctor. We all do.

When she returned to the room, Tomas was all curled up sucking his thumb. She stroked his hair. He seemed to smile. It's miraculous how close this body is to his - she thought.
Then he said something in Old Vahmperigo (an ancient vampire dialect)....

But she didn't know the words...

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