a vampire allegory

anonymous | Spring 2021

Life is simple: walk down this road once daily.

Most people are able to do so during the day, in a large mob. Your parents are there. It’s always a delightful, sunny day. Your best friend is encouraging you at your shoulder. It’s a brisk twenty minute walk. There is a celebration at the end. When you’re done, you can continue living in one of the many houses lining the road.

And then there are the vampires.

Obviously, they cannot join the crowd during the day—it would be too dangerous for them. They wouldn’t be able to hide from the blinding, burning sun, and even if they could, it would be so risky, and dangerous, and what if your fellow people don’t believe you when you say you’re a vampire, or worse, doubt the very existence of vampires, and laugh at you, or worse. No, it is far safer to wait until the stars are out and walk alone.

For tonight’s chapter, the role of Wendy will be played by Count Wendla, Vampire.

It’s just past sunset and Count Wendla is out for her walk on the street she’s known her entire life. Every house on the street is owned by someone who claims to want to help her, though she has never seen any of them looking out their windows to check on her, or opening their doors to see if she would like a meal. Wendla has been told that she can knock on any of the doors, whenever she wants. She has heard their voices say so from the mouth of her dank little cave during the day, when the sun makes everything feel safer than it is for them, when they know Wendla is just an idea in her dank little cave .

Wendla walks down the street, right in the center. Anyone looking out could tell that she would get hit by any oncoming traffic. Anyone looking out knows that she will eventually burn up, come day time. Anyone looking out knows that Wendla needs some assistance, just for a little bit. Even simple encouragement would do.

And so Wendla is walking down the streets, and looking in the windows of the houses of the people she knows who are not vampires, and have promised to be there, should she ever need anything.

Within reason, of course, they’re not going to let her drain them! But she can have a little taste, or a good hug, and they are willing to give a little bit of themselves to her. And at no cost to themselves, they have assured her; yet the prospect of having to approach them is Sisyphean. All that Wendla must do is approach a door, knock, wait, and be let in. There is no problem, there is no damage to be done, it is highly implausible that she faces any challenge whatsoever, and highly plausible that she will find the comfort she seeks. Yet, there is a certain affect in their voices, a certain tone, the way they step back just ever so slightly when she opens the door, that communicates to her that whoever opens their door to see Wendla on their stoop is caught off-guard, and is unprepared emotionally to help tonight, and only does so because they feel obligated. By simply opening their doors, Wendla feels, they are offering her their neck out of nothing but pity. She knows that it is draining to them, to give her what she needs; in fact, there have been times where she has been at home, safe and sound after an alright walk, and has seen other vampires walking down the street, vampires she said she would assist, should she ever have some extra lifeblood (which she does just then), and she goes to the window, but does nothing to help them as they continue to walk down the street in a perfectly straight line towards a possible attack. Oh yes, at the end of the street, there may lay an attack, almost always self-inflicted, as most attacks on vampires are. Perhaps, at the end of this road is not an attack but a funeral, the only barrier between walking for an eternity being to choose the burial over continuing to walk.

Wendla could go home, but home is unsafe for Wendla, as it is filled with spikes, and silver, and garlic, and other reminders of her unique mortality. Wendla finds it peculiar that normal people do not think about death like she does, that it is only vampires like herself who consider how they would die, if they had any control. That people don’t naturally have opinions on their death, and that this fact alone would separate Wendla from everyone else, even if she didn’t know she was a vampire, if she didn’t think she was a vampire, if she didn’t act like a vampire, to simply be often aware of the fact that there are methods by which you can easily remove yourself from life, and knowing how and when you would take advantage of them, and knowing to whom all your personal effects would be left, things like your books, and your clothing, and your favorite stuffed animal, to even consider any of this in any way other than as an abstract concept of old age, sickness, or freak and total accident, to know that this simple fact of thinking about death as a real thing to be seized, that this alone marks you as separate from everyone else, is more piercing than any stake could ever be, as it means Wendla is different as a rule, and not a choice. Wendla doesn’t always think of death as a way to end her life, though.

Sometimes, she thinks of it as a way to end her difference, but because she was ruled different when bitten, because her difference and her life are now intertwined, so too are the ends of her difference and of her life.

There is still a stigma that attaches itself to the thoughts of other human beings when you confirm that you, yourself—yes, you—are a vampire, and all the connotations of what has happened to other vampires start dripping from their brain pans, and immediately whatever relationship existed between the newly exposed vampire and their friend is immediately taken to a new notch, to a new place that it cannot recover from, because now there is a vampire in the room, who will never go away, whose only goal seems to be sucking the lifeblood out of their acquaintances, and because even though more than 16.1 million Americans are themselves vampires, the stigma around vampirism is insurmountable. It will affect every single moment of the continuing relationship, and Wendla, like every vampire, is well aware of this stigma and its effects, and this is part of what pierces her so fully that there are days when she feels unable to leave her bed, beds that always manage to feel like coffins to their vampire inhabitants.

The walking is not the same for every vampire. Sometimes, people become temporary vampires, but only when something incredible has happened in their personal lives, like the death of a family member. Those vampires are able to end their difference and continue living, although most converts are permanent. A lot of vampires are on medications, and some of them are even able to join the daytime walks, so long as they stay on those medications. There are some vampires, though, who remain unable to reach out even to their doctor, to say that they feel like a vampire, and so walk the road in a night-time hell. These are the vampires who are most likely end their own differences and lives.

Many vampires realize that their vampirism is damaging to the people around them, even those who claim to love the vampire despite the vampirism, who claim to be there for the vampire, should the vampire ever need anything. The vampire can see through this, can see the pangs of guilt and pain that pass through these people when the vampire complains about something that seems so normal to a vampire, like how they were unable to brush their teeth today, or unable to drink any water and are now parched and in pain, but find that they are apathetic to their own pain, that they even enjoy the pain, because at the very least it is a feeling. Vampires have so few feelings, compared to the other people on the road. This is something that those other people don’t much understand about vampirism: it is not sadness that vampires feel, it is absolute emptiness. It is the impossibility of feeling good when they see a friend succeed, the impossibility of finding tears when a cousin they used to hang out with has died, the impossibility of even feeling sad when something terrible happens to them, only able to add it to the pile. Vampirism is not a sadness, it is a lack. Vampirism means that Wendla does not feel anything other than how villainous she is for being herself, how cruel of her it is to put herself onto other people for help, how draining it is to go and knock on someone’s door and ask for a meal and maybe a room to stay in and an ear to listen, only for a night, even from people who have promised those very things, even if they have signs on their lawn proclaiming their undying support, Wendla can only see herself as a burden, because that is ultimately what she is to herself, and that anyone could ever perceive her any differently is such a foreign concept to her that she could never believe it. Not if someone should pay for her meal, or find her funny, or say happy birthday. Never.

Sometimes, people will suggest cures for vampirism. They will suggest that vampires change pace, or that they talk to somebody. Except, that vampires have often tried changing pace, and that the idea of talking to someone about themselves is one of the worst things a vampire can imagine, and it would make them feel terribly narcissistic, and it wouldn’t even help anyway, so we might as well drop the subject, those vampires say. Sometimes, vampires find their own solutions in drugs and alcohol, but that simply leads them to the same road, only now they are unable to comprehend where they are and so believe the drugged, dull road to be a fine and good road, not seeing that every time they walk down this changed path, the road itself begins to grow teeth it will eventually use to eat the vampire up.

And so Wendla is walking down the road, and she cannot turn into any of the houses, and the road has teeth, or something, and at the end of this road that she travels nightly there is a knife with her name on it, and she can use it against herself how ever she chooses, and sometimes she chooses violent methods that make afflicted areas feel like sand, which is better than anything, but still no good at all, and even though Wendla can tell that this road is a dangerous road, she has to walk, and the only escapes are death and medicine, and what are antidepressants good for, anyway, if she still has to walk down the road, and she just wants a fucking hug, and the knowledge that it can get better, because if this is what life is like, if this is what life itself is like, this road, unbearable after barely 18 years, impossible for any longer, if this is what life is like, she knows without doubt she would rather end her difference (and herself), no matter the effects on anybody else, in the hope that maybe next time, if there is a next time, or an afterlife, or anything else, it will be better, not realizing that no matter what she does, this is her only road, and these houses are her friends, and their doors are locked tight.