A VAMPIRE CONFRONTS A GHOUL.... 11/19/13

It all happened very quickly. Tomas sat ruminating on Santa's old Toy Land throne (see last night's episode) when one of the child-ghosts, in these dusty shadows, started whimpering...a lost keening sound, akin to an old violin on a dark, drizzly night. The spirit saw, or felt something. So sensitive they are. And after a heartbeat or two our vampirino 'Hamlet' (well, sort of) also felt it.

He rose from his resting place and began to explore... silently... stealthy, like a cat. I don't know why simpletons liken them to bats. They're much more feline in nature with perhaps a pinch of arachnid thrown in. But that's just me... and disembodied, spirit narrators are so particular.

After a bit he picked up the scent... thin and weak, for spectral beings are subtle that way. But the taste of blood was in the air... dead blood... young blood. Then he saw him, perched upon a tall stack of cartons, hastily pushed into a corner during the last days of this place. The midnight fiend, known as Johnny Jump Up finished a meal, gnawing on the ragged remains of juvenile thigh muscle left clinging to a none too fresh femur. The cadaverous monster in his tight, black suit mindlessly savored each semi-dry morsel. You know how ghouls get when they dine? But the vampire, Tomas, ever aware of his surroundings, moved closer, creeping up on old displays (Motorized Erector Set! $9.95!) and surviving, though non-functioning, light fixtures.

Night-folk here about despise ghouls, tragic though they are (victims of pre-mature burial) and confront them at every turn. Odd that the greasy haired monster crawled in here. They usually favor rooftops. Something must be afoot.

But his vampiric adversary cared little for dark-time politics, as he soundlessly crept across  the ceiling, coming to rest just above the loathsome head. The scent, thin though it was repulsed him. He stopped and steeled himself a moment before creeping down the wall, coming to rest behind the chalk skinned ghoul. Then he silently leaned in, delivering a quick, little nip to the monster's rancid ear.....

Time froze for a moment. Such a macabre, artistic composition they made, there in the feeble glow from the battery powered, liar-candles.

But an instant later it was over... and the razor sharp battle was on....

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NOW THE VAMPIRE TOMAS, ALSO KNOWN AS JONATHON, TALKS... 11/18/13

I left the Anti-Enchantment Bureau. Always hated that name. But according to Doctor Franklin, they had to call it something like that and pretend to be against the very thing they sought. Back then, simplistic bumpkins really did storm 'the manor' with pitchforks.

Of course they wanted me to stay... not so much for my company, but for what they could learn from me and I had given them enough. In his own way, the doctor understood. So I sublimated up through the below-ground levels and walked away. And no, I did not wander naked through the city. The good natured old reprobate gave me garments from his own supply, which meant I was outfitted in Philadelphia Eagles wear from head to toe... green sweatsuit...down filled jacket... knit cap... socks, underwear and sneakers too. Those abroad at this late hour took me for a rabid fan and I actually joined a bunch of them for drinks in a certain, well known after hours club. I do have a tolerance for alcohol, you know. Beer, not so much. That has food value. But alcohol, particularly vodka and gin, is something else. 

I like mixing with mortals. I enjoy studying them... smelling them and feeling their breath. Even their farts are novel to me. They seem so intertwined with the natural world. Oxygen truly means something to them. Organic food, not in the facile marketing sense, but in a visceral way, is life to them. Have you ever noticed how asparagus scents their pee? I love that. But after two drinks I left, preferring to depart before the ugly drunken part sets in. 

I went to a favorite haunt of mine, the dusty ruins of the old Gimbel Brothers Department Store, sealed underground, off to the side of the Eighth Street subway stop. It's still there in tumble-down disarray. The elferinos and elferinas (pubescent vampires) play among the remnants of the old toy department. Santa's Village, it was called. You can still see the sign. Know how they light the place? With hundreds of battery powered artificial, yellow, flickering candles. I believe they 'fell off a truck.' Our elfin caste is so mischievous that way, trading ancient night-folk intoxicants (obviously, I cannot give you the recipe) for whatever they fancy from the bad boys down Delaware Avenue.... No, I believe they call it Columbus Boulevard now. They trade for the batteries too. You see, mortals basically know about us, but pretend not too. Afraid of the 'mysterious' and all that. The police know we're here. The clergy knows. Homeless souls hiding in pitch black 'service' alleys know. Oh, I could go on.... In their truncated parts they do know. But 'humanity' as a whole... whatever that means, does not. It's easier that way. Magic frightens them. They want it, but they fear it.... Maybe we do too.

Night-folk live suspended in it. I know other denizens of this on-going tale speak of 'children from afar,' creatures birthed on other worlds and how they play with and change us, mortals, night-folk, all of us. Yet even those powerful beings are subject to it. Magic is everywhere and it settles on each and every one of us quite differently. Some manifest as witches, or vampires, or elferinos (a somewhat different form). Others grow into merfolk, or wolf-folk, or never-dies, or lucid wanderers. The variations are endless. Perhaps we can move from one phase to the next? Little Annie managed to escape. A vampire no more... 

I think about that now. I think about it a lot. Regular friends of course know that. And although a purely mundane life would drive me completely insane, some other enchanted resonance might suit me very well. I could be a very contented magi. The blood is not the thing. I crave it because I am made to crave it. But even vampires, true vampires, know it's the taking of the life that sustains us. The bloody kiss but a dramatic accoutrement. 

So I sit here on Santa's abandoned throne, pondering ruined displays of childless toys. The dolls seem very sad, Chatty Baby especially so. Sometimes I pull the ring just to keep her company. Sometimes I conjure forts out of Legos, or their elder brothers, Lincoln Logs, just to give them purpose. Ghostly children peek out from the gloom, but they have not yet learned to manipulate physical things, so I, or my little elfin brothers and sisters, do it for them. The flickering, electric, liar-candles shed a deathly glow. The nightmare after Christmas (or after one Christmas) this is... How the dust softens it all.

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AN ASSORTMENT OF VAMPIRE WONDERLAND CHARACTERS TALK... 11/17/13

DARK TOWNHOUSE KITCHEN

Some guy types away on a laptop under a weak, focused beam from a recessed ceiling fixture. It's 'wilkravitz' (Okay, you know it's me, BILLY)

He stops typing, looks up from the screen... addresses the camera.

BILLY - They had an idea... a vampire blog... an ongoing journal 
               detailing their lives, histories and secrets.. Not fiction. 
               never fiction. We only pretend that it is. Sometimes 
               they talk and I type. Sometimes I record what I see on
               this little audio thing and type it up later. Occasionally 
               one of them 'sends' stuff telepathically. I'm not the best.
               But I try. They tell me I'm pretty accurate, but I think 
               that's because the 'senders' are vampires and they got this
               whole magic-energy-power thing. Maybe that's what does 
                it. I'm just guessing.

               But they're starting to blame me for everything. Vampires
               like a certain amount of 'controlled' notoriety. They're 
               vain. Edith says it's not really that they're vain. They're
               just self-conscious about being different. You know, no
               matter what they say, they really never stop being human,
               just a different kind of human. They want to be accepted. 
              They want to be understood. And this is real life. I'm not
               talking about them leather and lace posers you read about
               everywhere else. Jeez, you know what Jonathon does 
               every year when Hanukah time rolls around? He makes
               little, dark, blue velvet, drawstring gift bags. Fills 'em 
               with like ten silver dollars, maybe some gold foil wrapped
               chocolate coins. And you know how much real silver
               dollars bring. He walks the streets, giving them out to poor
               people. Some are regulars. They wait for him every year.
               And he's done this for like three hundred years, maybe 
               more. I don't know if he did it in Europe. I don't know.

               Tells me it's my fault some TV or movie guy doesn't notice
               'us'. Actually bought a copy of THE HOLLYWOOD 
               REPORTER AGENTS & MANAGERS DIRECTORY, I
               think it is. Had me make up these really nice proposals...
               query letters, synopsis'... all that stuff... on real expensive,
               heavy stock too. Believe me. I got the paper cuts, or at 
               least the scars from them, to prove it. Sent out maybe 
               sixty of them. Most never responded. I included stamped 
               envelopes, postcards, everything. A few scrawled 'nope'
               on the postcard and that was it. One or two tried to be 
               polite about it. But it always came down to the same 
               thing...'recommendations'.... 'who sent you's?'.... and we
               just got the wrong kind a 'uncles.' What else can I tell you?

               Sarah don't mind too much. She just does her thing and
               keeps quiet. But Jonathon minds. It hurts him. I can tell.                    It's not like anyone on the other side of the velvet ropes 
               ever read their stories and THEN said no, 'cause that 
               ain't happened... not even once. They just say 'no.' 
               Jonathon stares at them rejections and says - They won't
               even sanction my right to exist.... Then he lights an 
               aroma candle (vampires love aroma candles) and sits in
               the corner.

               The whole idea behind the blog was to draw attention
               and it still is. They're not gonna stop. I'm not gonna stop.
               How can I? And we have had almost a hundred and forty 
                thousand 'hits.' Sure some're spam. Everybody gets spam.
               But not too much, 'cause I keep track of it. First year we 
               got zilch. Page views I mean. Second year we got maybe
               a little more than zilch. Third year was better. And you
               know how grateful we all are for each and every one of 
               you... 'readers' I mean.

               But if you got like a friend, or cousin who 'knows 
               somebody, and if you like what we put out there,
               please point them our way.

               Thank you. I didn't mean to go on like this, but you
                know how it is... And I gotta stop now and get a drink
                'cause my throat is so dry from talkin' so much..

Sighs, gets up. Goes over to the big, stainless steel, French door, refrigerator, takes out a two liter plastic jug of iced tea, screws off the top and guzzled it right from the container... Then he puts it back, closes the fridge, turns off the laptop and flips off the light. 

The screen goes black, save for the words VAMPIRE WONDERLAND IS REAL...

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Behind 'The Magic' IS 'The Magic'..... 11/15/13

THE MER-FOLK POOL - Tomas sits on the edge, bathed in the pale undulating light reflecting up from the water. He tosses live, baby humbolt squid to the outlandish, aquatic humanoids.

DOCTOR FRANKLIN and his assistant, the lovely physician-vampire known as LUNA, observe from adjacent glass walled room.

DOCTOR FRANKLIN - Look how they twist off the heads... so clean... so fast... so neat.

LUNA - Shame to waste the tentacles. I hear they're very sweet.

DOCTOR FRANKLIN - Not 'wasted' my dear. The young ones get the heads as they sink beneath the surface. I think we have three of four of them in there now. It's a teaching thing. The beaks, you know. They must be taught to pinch out the beaks.

LUNA - How long will we keep them?

DOCTOR FRANKLIN - That's not for me to say. It's entirely up to them. Volunteers, my dear, brought here from a colony just beyond the mouth of the Chesapeake. Imagine, mer-folk inhabiting off-shore waters once again. They never liked the Mid-Atlantic Ridge... so dark... so cold... so remote. But they were safe there so they made do. 

LUNA just stares at Tomas. DOCTOR FRANKLIN notices and goes on...

... That one is a remarkable specimen, don't you think? I've dealt with others... older ones... younger ones... all kinds... 'you.' But Tomas, or Jonathon, or whoever he styles himself knows things.... (he studies her and says) Do you still want him?

The physician - vampire, focused on her one-time enamorada doesn't respond. DOCTOR FRANKLIN draws his own conclusions and smiles, as a bare Tomas puts down the empty bucket and slides off the edge to join his aqueous friends.

FOCUS ON underwater shot of the vampire swimming amidst the others.

CUT TO

CLOSE UP... a man's face... one of The RED PAINT PEOPLE... notice how he favors Captain Jean-Luc Picard of the starship Enterprise, but then again they all do... He speaks...

RED PAINT MAN - Beyond 'the magic' is 'the magic.' Each manifestation a reflection of what went before. Passed every door is another room and each has an open door.

PULL BACK.... He sits  at the kitchen table in the Center City, Philadelphia townhouse. EDITH serves dinner to her Jersey Pine Barren guests. She knows the RED PAINT FOLKS from way back. All the males have that Jean-Luc Picard look and all the females favor Olympic Skier, Peekaboo Street. No one responds. They just cut their meat and silently chew.

EDITH - (puts dessert on the table) Well, who wants pie?

The warm, fragrant, apple-filled delight slides down the table, coming to a stop before one of the RED PAINT males...

EDITH - Help yourself.

FADE TO the shadowy, blue, undulating depths of the mer-folk pool back at DOCTOR FRANKLIN'S underground complex.

FOCUS ON Tomas' enigmatically smiling face. His hair floats out around him... 

He opens his mouth, releasing a cloud of live, swimming, baby seahorses... The tiny young ones race to the surface, transforming into bubbles that burst and disappear...

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FLY AWAY ALL..How Vampires Might Preserve The Human Species .. 11/13/13

And there were other rivulets on the surface of Tomas' brain. Doctor Franklin's armonica sees all. Nothing can hide from him. The mortal Tomas loved smooth, Moroccan halvah and sweet, sesame candies from confectioners in Cadiz. He liked to ride the fine Arabians in his father's stables (gifts from the son of the khalif) deep into the orange Andalucian evenings. And the jam filled, deep fried chorizos served during The Feast of The Re-Dedication (Hanukah) were, in his boyhood opinion, sublime.

But these were mortal memories. His vampire mind knew other things. 'Papa,' the one who conjured him knows everything. He knows who swims beneath the icy crust of Europa and the resting place of many highly coveted relics. Indeed, the venerable, old one claims once to have touched the golden veneer of The Arc of The Covenant, the only thing in human possession wrought by The Hand of God.  Why he did not die, I do not know. Perhaps the fact that as a vampire he was already 'officially' dead might have saved him?

Have you ever wondered why 'vampirismo' is so big in the world these days? For the passed thirty seven years I'd say. Well, fifty five years hence (from nineteen seventy six in the trinitarian calender) I mean, Nibiru comes. And according to ancient lore, when it does, we go. Kadur Ha'Arets (Planet Earth) will be no more. But that is only what nihilists think. They revel in end times and have little faith. Johannon, the teller of this tale, and one time bodyguard and servant to the mortal Jonathon (also known as Tomas) feels quite differently about this matter. The world will be perfected. And humans will at last become perfect vessels for The Divine Presence.

Though Tomas (also known as Jonathon) walked with night-folk too. Indeed, he became one. And while still steeped in the faith of his fathers, shares certain beliefs with the vampires, incredulous as that may seem. The year '2032' is one of them. Nibiru, the Death World returns, shattering our God-given haven and killing the Children of Eve. Now to me, the spirit known as Johannon, you should excuse the expression, this is hogwash. But I will explain what kernels of belief lie within the 'vampire' Tomas' brain. 

He and certain others of his kind see themselves as saviors, charged with preserving a remnant and rising with them into the firmament (note I said 'firmament' and not heaven) before the ultimate destruction, there to find purchase upon another world.

But in order to survive that remnant must be changed. Mortals can't sublimate up from the Earth. Only vampires can do that. So vampires they must be.... a preserved number of humanity, though anything but human... well, not in the true sense. 

'Papa' taught him these things, or passed them on to him, I should say. Nibiru is a Sumerian 'thing' and you know what pagans they were. 

So answer me this.... Do you think your children will die a most grievous and horrific death eighteen years from now? Is that what's in your heart? For the heart knows many things.

And most of them are true.....

Can you hear the chords of the armonica?....
Shhhh... listen...

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Meet The 'Never-Dies' ...... 11/12/13

Tomas, also known as Jonathon, is still receiving harmonic treatments at The Anti-Enchantment Bureau. He's still very confused and depressed. Vampires get that way sometimes. Lately with him it's a hobby. But we have detected a bit of paranormal information via the full psyche scans and would like to make you privy to it as well...

'Never-Dies'.... Remember that term, for it identifies yet another gruesome toothsome churning in the night-world soup. To keep it simple, they're old people... extremely aged old people, who've lost, or never had, the ability to die. You've heard the expression 'the good die young?' Well, this bears it out. 

Imagine someone who grows ever knobbier and bristlier and fuzzy-downy haired and wrinklier and fungi-nailed and twisted. Oh, and they drool and spit too. But as their muscles weaken, they also contract into thin, little, gristly steel-like cords. Some mistakenly call them goblins. 

They hobble through the shadows (repulsive beings tend to do that) grabbing dirty, city pigeons, which they cram into their snaggle toothed maws, feathers, feet, heads, flapping wings and all. The mole-kids consider them to be great clowns... except when THEIR on the menu, since some resort to cannibalism. The witch in Hansel und Gretel was a Never-Die, in case you're interested.

A few practitioners of the macabre claim they resonate no magic, but are animated by a rare disease, a live-forever germ, if you will. In its early stages children and grandchildren of sufferers care for them via hopefully benign incarcerations in old folks' jails, better known as 'nursing homes.' But time finally takes it's toll and there comes a day when great-great grandchildren have no idea who they are. That's when the sinewy survivors break free their bonds, gum a few ersatz nurse attendants to death and shuffle out into the great, wide world. Most form trios, or quartets. A few are solo acts. Normal mortals rarely see them... But they abide and their rheumy eyes stare with longing at fresh skin and plump cheeks.

Edith (friend, confidant and witchy-woman housekeeper to our vampires) knows a few from back in the Jersey Pine Barrens who live off scared, young kids in stalled cars. You know, they're all not runaways.

'Never-Dies'.... Who'd a thunk it? Gleaned from the neurons of a life-eater's (p.c. term for vampire) mind. 

Even Doctor Franklin didn't know about them and in a sense he's, sort of, like a 'healthy' one himself.

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SOOTHING A TROUBLED VAMPIRE.... 11/9/13

They got Tomas into a room, not the big chamber with the big Grand Armonica. This was a secondary one, but more than up to the take. He was convulsing, so they laid him out on a table for treatment. Luna was there. Sarah, his 'declared' consort, hates her. Sure she (finally) recognizes the polyogamous  (not really polygamy. just the opposite of monogamy) nature of night-folk love affairs, but she still hates Luna. She just does. Look at her in that crisp, white lab coat. Look how she has the sleeves pushed up just so. And what, does the Anti-Enchantment Bureau have in-house hair dressers now? How's she get that bun, or twist, or whatever it is so perfect. Must loosen those tendrils with a crochet hook. 

Now please know Sarah was not there in the flesh, however her remote viewing abilities are very strong. She wanders the world at will, observing strange goings on in Roman catacombs and Los Angeles sex affairs unbeknownst even to @TMZ ... Vampires, especially intelligent 'noble' ones are exceedingly curious creatures. Galileo worked with some. So did Da Vinci, Josephine Baker, Alexander Pushkin and Helena Rubinstein. There are hundreds...maybe thousands, but those five just happened to pop into my head.

And did I tell you that Luna's a vampire... a vampire physician, to be exact. Raised by the Bureau. A prodigy she was... able to dissect and analyze mummified tissue at seven years old. By twelve she achieved verifiable cogent thought and observable brain-muscular connections in her first head transplants. Human to human switches ultimately bored her, but her first human-dog switch ( a Quebecois lounge singer and a Great Dane) grew ever more melancholy. The one with the human head missed his thumbs. Dew claws, even intact ones, aren't the same. He could no longer hold martini glasses and that, apparently was a big part of his act. The Great Dane with the human body is a watchman in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania and engaged to be married to a cute, little foreign thing with her own nail salon, who's positively addicted to his indiscriminate and not always facial 'kisses.'

But Luna eventually succumbed to vampirism. I think the unbelievably long lived one called 'Papa' had something to do with it (twenty eight thousand years old, but looks like a thirty two or thirty three year old Richard Gere), though this disembodied spirit narrator does not know, as I was still embodied at the time (only two years ago) and selling vintage hula-hoops door to door. I killed myself. OK? Don't ask.

She intubated her former night-folk lover (even vampire bodies benefit from certain carefully prepared nostrums) and snapped off his tight, little, black, leather, 'Speedo' thing. Then they turned on the not quite as grand Armonica apparatus in that room and levitated him up into the therapeutic (and probing) 'spider web' made from sound. Such soothing chords they were.

Doctor Franklin, sporting one of his signature, emerald green, Philadelphia Eagles sweat suits, arranged himself in a nearby ergonomically correct reclining chair and regaled the more-than-human patient with tales of not so ergonomically correct torture devices. Vampires, even usually well meaning ones, like Tomas, are intrigued by such things. 

The three hundred and seven year old, scientifically preserved patriot whispered stories of a huge, obsidian cube, all black and shiny, owned by an Indian potentate. The house size bauble was split horizontally through the middle, with an indentation in the center meant to snuggly encase a temporarily living human body. Tiny, almost microscopic tubules  let air in. Royal elephants harnessed to decorative pulleys raised the top half, allowing the condemned to creep inside. Then the upper portion slowly lowered, sealing the understandably flustered subject into fatal embrace. Cue the royal elephants. Pull the heavy juggernaut out into the hot Deccan sun. It was called 'Journey To The Center of The Earth.' And when, after a few days, they raised the upper half, the body inside was baked fine and even, as if in the best tandoori.

After a time the vampire, Tomas, slept and soon after the old reprobate slept too.

Supernatural psyches need constant care....

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