monsters like me

... this most excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave o'erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire, why, it appears no other thing to me than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours. - Hamlet, Act II, Scene II; William Shakespeare

...

The sky above the city I call home is blinkered by ambient light, its expanse barely eliciting a yawn on the rare nights when I raise my gaze to examine it more closely. No one round these parts looks up anymore; there's hardly anything to see.

But memory torments my thoughts this night, and like an old fool I lean a ladder against the house and climb to the roof with faint hope I might see the sky I remember from my youth. Deep in the heart of the Mojave Desert the sky in those nights seemed to stretch away forever. The stars in their tens of thousands filled the darkness like an unbroken eternity that I have never witnessed before or since.

Opening the folding chair that I carried up with me, I straddle it carefully atop the roof's peak before resting my old bones upon its seat. The handful of gauzy stars that greet my gaze only make me feel more depressed than I already was.

The sky is barren, a wasteland, like me. Former passions have fled for more profitable pastures like the night sky of my youth, its former glory an almost forgotten memory. Perhaps I am a better man now or simply a duller one. It’s hard for me to make a clear distinction between the two.

Gazing up at the lonely moon, tears begin to fill my eyes, silvery clouds glide across its bright surface till its light is no more than a soft glow in the night. Old friend, I no longer feel your former majesty and wonder. You look as gray as I feel.

Am I truly prepared to repent of my crimes? Some people believe that confession is a healing balm. But how can I confess to the world what I truly am when the world refuses to believe that monsters like me exist?

Everyone I meet is an open book, the emotions you try to disguise written in your expression and posture, or in the discomfort so nakedly visible in your gaze. Not one of you can keep anything of true worth from me or stop me of plucking your very hearts. This gift was not born of a lifetime of study. I have actively uncovered people's preciously guarded secrets from my earliest childhood.

In the first grade, when the teacher asked for a volunteer for some special honor, I was always picked. Always. For most people guile is learned. But I was born with it, my innocent classmates believing that if in gesture and voice they communicated how very badly they wanted something, that the teacher would reward the intensity of their neediness. But day after day, I would stand quietly behind them as they begged, leaped and frantically waved; my right hand raised, and my eyes respectfully locked with the teacher's.

No one taught me this. I knew what the teacher wanted from the very first day.

I never threw tantrums or pleaded or demonstrated through overt emotion how greatly I desired anything. I gave my elders the nonverbal cues they were trying to inculcate in children who would never 'get it.'

Even now, long after my eyes were opened to the true nature of my curse, when I need or want something from someone, I still fall into old patterns of behavior and select the most effective mask based on the body language of the person I'm negotiating with, and I possess hundreds of them. Does their cross expression require surprise on my part or facile and innocuous innocence? Should I respond to anger with heartfelt apology or frustration with understanding? I should have been an actor. I always get what I want and always will.

Creatures like me do not worry about trivial pastimes like personal growth. When you know how to get your way like I do, using others becomes second nature. When I was young, I didn't spend time worrying about other people's feelings. After all, they were lucky to have me around.

Before I plumbed my vacuous depths, I would never have dreamt of darkening a psychologist's door or reading a self-help book to increase my empathy or compassion. Why would I? I already did an excellent impression of both. Isn't it enough to seem warm and compassionate?

I'm charming, sophisticated with impeccable tastes. As monsters go, I'm not such a bad guy. But when I met and married a woman who could read me like I read everyone else, she began to methodically tear my defenses down.

This is not what is supposed to happen to creatures like me. We only ever do what is best for us. We don't give a fig about being better spouses, neighbors or friends. Monsters cannot change their narcistic proclivities any more than a leopard can change its spots.

Understand this, every culture in the world has its own mythic monster traditions. The Strigoi in Romania, the Chupacabra in Latin America and Lilitu in mighty Babylon. The ancient Greeks had the Lamia, the Romans the Strix and in Sanskrit India the ghoulish Vetalas. But in the modern era we don't believe in monsters and we damn sure don't believe in vampires.

But we became obsessed with them in the eighteenth century during the so-called Age of Enlightenment and have worshipped what we claim not to believe ever since. It all began in earnest during an outbreak of vampirism in Southeastern Europe and Transylvania. The widespread panic that followed served as the foundation of the vampire legend that later overtook Germany and England and eventually led to Bram Stoker to write his masterpiece, Dracula. They have lived inconveniently in the western psyche ever after.

The first officially recorded vampires in modern history were Petar Blagojevich and Arnold Paole from Serbia. The reports of those who died of blood loss due to Blagojevich and Paole's attacks were well documented at the time. Government officials examined the vampire's corpses and wrote case reports. Books about them were published all over Europe. Historians refer to the resultant hysteria as the 18th-Century Vampire Controversy.

Voltaire, one of the chief writers and philosophers from this era, made the following observations on the outbreak:

These vampires were corpses, who went out of their graves at night to suck the blood of the living, either at their throats or stomachs, after which they returned to their cemeteries. The persons so sucked waned, grew pale, and fell into consumption, while the sucking corpses grew fat, got rosy, and enjoyed an excellent appetite.

But they were not vampires, just a pair of unfortunate dead blokes who could not prevent their consequent second death by stakes through their lifeless hearts.

I advise you to forget everything you think you know about vampires. The flesh of true vampires does not combust with the rising of the sun; we are not repelled by crucifix or garlic. We see our reflection in the mirror just like you and our shadows follow us obediently whenever we walk in the light. Most importantly we never, ever suck blood. Well, mostly never.

We live among you, hidden in plain sight. Just because a creature exists in myth does not mean it lacks an analogue in the real world. We only share two things in common with the vampires of myth: otherworldly charisma and a craving for the joy that makes life truly worth the living.

Every culture in the world features its own version of bloodsucking revenants for reason. The modern fascination with vampires serves as a subtle warning that is ignored at your peril. The vampires of myth are archetypes for a monster who is very real and far more dangerous.

The most powerful among us have ruled as emperors, kings and presidents, run mighty corporations and commanded huge armies. All of us have held people in thrall, the weakest of us perhaps only a few, while the greatest control billions.

In the twentieth century vampires ruled over half the earth. Hundreds of millions lost their lives due to their schemes and lusts. The combined might of the allied powers defeated three of them. The two who survived, mainly by guile, rose from the terrible ashes of World War II to slay millions more before dying old men in their beds.

Vampires are thieves of life. If you let him (most vampires are hims) a vampire will suck the joy from your life till you're no more than a whisper of your former self. Ever notice how dreamy the vampires are in the movies and television? What do you suppose you will receive in return for the romantic fantasy that draws you into a true vampire's orbit?

The ultimate salesman, the vampire can sniff out a future drudge. He is not looking for a life partner, he's hunting for a slave. He will shower you with affection and love in the beginning and the woman seeking Prince Charming will believe with all her heart that she has found him and soon surrender herself to his cruel designs. Once you commit yourself to him heart and soul, the mask with which he deceived you will vanish like an eddy of wind. You will never behold it again.

Because you do not know what he truly is, you will believe that he is human like you and will struggle mightily to please him and make him love you like he did in the beginning. But know this, the only thing the vampire loves is himself, the only thing he values is the sacrifice of others to the altar of his dark cravings.

The greater a vampire's power the more women will serve and love him. And once he has worn them out or they kill themselves in despair, he will search for new ones. From the perspective of the vampire, there is no us, no we, there is only me.

The vampire easily sees anything with the potential to serve him. When he scans a crowd he recognizes the thirst of fellow vampires, sees future drudges and familiars, and is quick to evade those who cannot be turned.

At one time or another you have all worked for vampire bosses and struggled to please those who cannot be pleased. You have voted for vampire politicians and swooned for vampire entertainers. You follow vampire influencers on Tik Tok and Instagram. And don’t get me started on the Vampires in the bro blogosphere who beat their bare chests and crow to the Me Too faithful, It’s your body, my choice.

But even if you take the time to read my words to the end, you will not believe. Instead, you will continue to callously ignore the danger gathering round about you. If any of you paid attention at all, my confession would be unnecessary. You would hunt us instead of us hunting you.

So here I impotently sit weeping atop my roof, trying to remember a sky witnessed half a lifetime before. Once upon a time I strode upon the earth like a god among men, the envy of every man and the desire of every woman.

My lineage includes princes, kings and legendary heroes. For it is written, The Nephilim were on the earth in those days and afterward as well when the sons of God had relations with the daughters of men, and they bore them children who became the mighty men of old, men of renown.

In the peak powers of my youth, I met a woman of such stunning beauty that even my dark heart was moved by it. I set for myself the task to tame her just as my mighty forebearers tamed other beautiful women, even the fabled Helen of the ancient world, the face that launched a thousand ships. But tonight, I feel weak, nauseated, afraid, my power bleeding away in the cool evening air.

My future spouse was raised by vampires and knew what I was the moment she set eyes upon me. From the beginning, our marriage was a gargantuan battle of wills. Maybe her motivation was always to tame me just as mine was to tame her. But in spite of her resistance, I did what vampires always do and robbed her of what little joy had survived her cruel childhood.

But she still managed to do what cannot be done. She made me both see and feel the great harm I had done. She brought this vampire low enough to forswear the feeding upon the beggardly remains of her joy. It gives me no pleasure to confess that I too have grown weak and more human than I ever dreamed possible.

But repentance is impossible if I cannot right my grievous wrongs. Her pale and joyless face haunts the long hours of both day and sleepless night. How can I return the years that the locust has eaten or the joie de vivre that drew my darkened heart to her from the beginning? If I cannot make other’s see the evil they have invited into their hearts and hearths, how can I ever blot out these my crimes?

She is seized with the sickness unto death and grows steadily weaker. I am little better, her pale visage a daily reminder of my sins against her. Though I try to show her the love I have long owed her, I cannot tell if my words and actions are sincere or just another one of the masks I wear like a habit that cannot be broken.

I feel the distant hardness of my heart even while gazing at the heavens with the forlorn hope of something more. But I cannot undo the hurt that I have laid at my bride's door or awaken my sleeping human brothers and sisters to the truth.

We live among you and yet you see us not. We are your neighbors, shop keepers, teachers, scout troop leaders and priests. We steal from you all that you hold dear and yet you do not guard even your little ones from us. Nor do you believe them when they tell you what we have done.

We are everywhere and yet you continue to stubbornly insist we are nowhere. The more you pretend we do not exist, the more powerful we become. The truth is but a whisper, a still small voice in the night if you would only stop to listen. Those who rage, shriek and shout are the liars.

This sickness that has overcome you all need not be unto death. But it is already late, the hour for you to awaken from sleep has almost passed. The danger is here, at your very door.

What will you do? I wonder, even as I close my folding chair and descend back to the silent earth.

...

And I, of ladies most deject and wretched, that suck'd the honey of his music vows.... O, woe is me, to have seen what I have seen, to see what I see! - Hamlet, Act III, Scene I; William Shakespeare