Vlad’s Vampire Diary: Out of Sorts

Dear Diary,

I apologize for not writing in your pages for such a long time. You have always been there for me, but alas, I faltered. No fear, I am back.

No fear, for I was not locked in a crypt with a knife in my heart.

I write that because the last time I was gone for so long I was locked in a crypt for three hundred years, consequently missing the 18^th-20^th centuries. But that is old news is it not?

Yesterday, October 23 was the date of my birth. I am now 681 years old. How time flies as the saying goes, or maybe it is a moth. I do not not know or care at this point. I could do without the insects as in my past life there were too many of them crawling around on the homes and bodies of people who were supposed to be good sources of blood.

My love Gillian has already scolded me once today for being what she calls out of sorts. I asked her what a sort is and she called me an asshole. 

I just wish this day, night, whatever it is now would just end.

~ Vlad

________

Dear Diary,

I believe I found my sorts. Maybe. Now I must feed the cats. They are always out of sorts, or at least their stomachs are.

~ Vlad

________

Dear Diary,

Once again it is almost Halloween. This is an interesting and perplexing holiday in the 21^st Century. Children dress as monsters and fairies then go from door to door asking for candy and showing off their costumes. Adults dress in costumes and consume mass amounts of alcohol. Everyone in my neighborhood is hanging orange and purple lights on their houses and trees. I have learned over the past ten years and now have my trees covered in purple and orange lights, as well as plastic skeletons hanging from the tree branches.

When I was King of the Vampires, I also would occasionally hang a skeleton from a tree, but it was not plastic. We did not have plastic then, or anything like it. If there were artificial skeletons they would have been made of wood, or metal, or some other more natural crafty materials. Now it would not be acceptable to hang the skeletons of my enemies from trees. 

I dare say getting all of the flesh and blood off of a skeleton is no small task, so the bare bones that hung from trees had been exposed to the elements for quite a while.

In the morning my friend Randolpho and I met at our friend Constantine to go to a farmer’s market in a park near his home where there were to be a great deal of pumpkins. Over the past few years I have quiet enjoyed the tradition of carving hideous faces, and cat faces into pumpkins and putting candles inside of them on Halloween. When I was King of Vampires, over 300 years ago, I did not even know pumpkins existed. They were New World plants. There was no way I would have known such things. 

My  two friends and I, all Vampires, a fact unknown to everyone else there, walked around the park, looking at stalls full of vegetables, handmade clothing, candles, herb mixes, and other wares, just like the days before modern commerce and grocery stores. It was quite lovely. Even though Randolpho was wearing one of his ridiculous top hats I could see people glancing our way and saying how fine we all looked. Connie is especially well dressed all of the time and is considered quite handsome. Of course I turned most of the heads, as usual. I could hear the women, and some of the men practically swooning when I walked by.

As we looked over the amazing array of pumpkins I said to Randolpho, “Remember when I hung those men in trees until they died and they hung there turned into nothing but skeletons?”

Randolpho quickly said in a harsh tone, in the language of our native land, “Don’t say things like that in public about killing and hanging people from trees.”

“They were rapists and murderers,” I said.

“It doesn’t matter,” said Randolpho. “Don’t talk about hanging people from trees or killing them.”

At that point Connie moved on to look at a booth with lavender oils and such. He is English so he only knows a tiny bit of the language of my people.

“Do not be so out of sorts,” I said.

“Don’t be an asshole Vlad. You know better. Jesus Christ, at times you are the most caring and thoughtful person I know, but sometimes, I just don’t know.”

“People will be angry at you using the Lord’s name in vain. You know how religious people are these days,” I said with some amount of sarcasm.

“Not so long ago racists would hang black people from trees, just for sport.”

“What? Why? People like our friends Victor and Amanda?” They are two Vampires who just moved here from a place called Atlanta, which is not to be confused with the lost city of Atlantas. 

“Yes, I witnessed it. It was done out of sheer evil and hate. Considerer it like witch burning, or Nazis, the men who killed Matthew Shepard, or the behavior of any other monsters who fear anyone who is different than they are.”

“I would never…”

“I know you wouldn’t but just think before you speak of murder, and hanging, and rolling heads, and all of the other violent things you might have witnessed in the past.”

I brought home five pumpkins. 

Gillian was home when I arrived. I told her about what had transpired.

“Do you think I am a monster?” I asked her.

“If you were a monster, I wouldn’t be with you. The Vampire I love would never harm anyone without good reason. Your killing days are over, and even then, it was out of justice for those who had been harmed. You were a King in a brutal time, yet you were not unjustly brutal. You were fair and caring. Your people truly loved you as you loved them. By now I thought things would be better. I thought violence and hate would be a thing of the past. I thought ignorance and intolerance would have been avoided, rather than embraced as they are with so many people. We lived in a different world back then, but some ugly things never seem to change.”

We spent the rest of the day, and the night, listening to the first rain of the season falling on our house. 

I took Gillian up to our bedroom and told her that I would always love her, and that I could not imagine a world without her. 

In my cold dark unbeating Vampire heart I can only try to find hope that maybe one day…yes, I hope for many things. I cannot go back, only forward. And that is what I will do.

~ Vlad

This has been the 78^th Installment of Vlad’s Vampire Diary. Click here to read the entire series from the very beginning.