“It was THE DAY. I was meeting with my agent and a museum curator from one of the most influential museums on the West Coast. The day before I’d filled up my gas tank and got the oil changed in my car. I was ready.
Only now I can’t remember the name of the museum or the city it was in. San Francisco maybe? I don’t know. I don’t even remember what kind of car I had except that I’d only had it for a year, and it was nice. Exceptionally nice.
I put my clothes out on my bed. My best black suit. A white shirt. A tie I’d hand-painted in almost neon bright colors. It was a fun crazy design with armadillos, and coyotes, rattle snakes, and big desert moths. Damn, it was a masterpiece. Along with that were purple socks, a white undershirt (I’m not a savage), I don’t remember what kind of under ware I was going to wear. Boxers maybe? The black ones? Was I going to be meeting anyone female in the city for some nighttime fun? No, I would have remembered that.
Then I went into the bathroom to take a shower.
I saw a black shape then felt like my head was going to explode. I slipped and fell. Then my head did explode. Someone shot me in the head. I remember that. Later I was amused that they didn’t mess up my face. Odd how we think of those things in the weirdest times.
The person who did that to me had said something, but I don’t remember. Maybe they called me a man whore, or an asshole. Sure, I slept around some, as much as any single guy back then, but I was never a man whore. Then they mentioned how they’d miss my smile and my pretty eyes. Pretty eyes? I guess.”
“I know you were never a man whore. You’re not that kind of man. Maybe a bit of a player but never a man whore,” she said, taking my hand. Damn she was beautiful. It was more than that. She understood me unlike no other woman ever has. She UNDERSTOOD ME. Then she asked me, “do you remember anything else from that morning?”
“Um, yeah. Well, no. I just looked around and thought about how good I was going to feel when I got there, and the looked forward to the drive, and reached up to brush my hair back before I dried it and my hand came back with blood. Then I went back into the bathroom and saw…saw my body in the shower. I didn’t have a bathtub in there, just a big fancy black and gray luxury shower with four shower heads. Oh man, my shampoo…it smelled like sandalwood and a touch of gardenia. Masculine without saying I was a total dick. It was expensive but I had the best hair.”
“You still do love.”
“So yeah, almost 40 years and I still can’t remember who killed me.”
“It took me about almost 200 years to remember the man who murdered me. By there was nothing I could do about it. I know I’d been killed but just couldn’t remember it for the longest time. Maybe it is a good thing when we can’t remember at first. It keeps us from haunting people and being complete ghouls.”
“You’re right about that. I wouldn’t want to be one of those kind of ghosts. Never. One thing I do remember thinking that morning is that I had never really fallen in love, or even thought about a serious relationship. Sure, there were a lot of girlfriends and others, but I never once told any of them that I loved them. Damn, I was only 26.”
“None? You were a modern man, and yet you did not love any of them.”
“I never loved any woman, honestly and truly, until I met you.”
“I love you with all my heart forever.”
“Forever,” he said.
Then she leaned over and kissed him, now with his hair dry, wearing the hand painted tie and the white shirt he’d been buried in.
Together they sat on the branch of an oak tree, outside of a house neither of them had ever lived in, and talked until the morning sun came up, and they could smell the coffee of the living, who they were convinced would never be as happy as they were at that moment.
This is a new story for 8.10.23
I spent most of the day at a “Celebration of Life” for a friend. Just wrote this one now at 9:30pm. Wishing you will all know the kind of love that truly does last forever.
~ Juliette aka Vampire Maman
Vampire Maman 