Vampires Never Get Old - Zoraida Cordova Page 0,37
Move on. Or find your sire and exact revenge by leaving them to burn in the sun. Stake through the heart and decapitation work, too. So, really, make the best of it, however you choose. We support your choices.
* * *
Sidenote
If you don’t want to go the traditional route of exchanging biodata through the aunties, Vampersand™ has contracted with TrulyMadly to create a password protected vampire-only community on their site. Your life may feel like it’s over, but you can still swipe left or right to your no-longer-beating heart’s content.
* * *
And you do still have choices. Your future is not yet written. You have the power to do that. In fact, maybe more so than ever.
Real talk? You still have feelings from before. They don’t disappear. Remember what we said? You’re not a demon. You’re still you. Only more blood-lusting and immortal. But at the core, you are what you always were. And this moment, right now, could be terrifying. And heartbreaking. And enraging. Even if the potential of tomorrow is endless. Even if tomorrow you feel free and can live a life unfettered. Today, something was taken from you that you were not yet ready to give. Family and friends. Loves, old or new. Dreams. All of that will change. Much of it will die. Time marches forward even when you’ve stopped. Where once you might have felt surrounded, at times suffocated, by your noisy, irritating, nosy, beautiful, loving family, now you are alone. No longer human. Reviled and misunderstood by many. But you are not unloved. You are here. And so are we. We see you. We believe in you. You are enough.
When you leave this place, step out into the late-evening quiet for the first time, reborn. Take in the glittering, crumbling streets around you. Look into the ink-black night. It’s dark. And full of diamonds.
And you, dear one, are made of stardust.
VAMPIRISM Or But Is It Possible That Vampires Are Real?
Zoraida Córdova & Natalie C. Parker
During the good ol’ dark ages and beyond, it was surprisingly easy to mistake a disease for a supernatural affliction. Vampire stories and disease have a close relationship. A bunch of people got sick and died? There is a vampire among us! The body of young Vania didn’t decompose during a particularly cold winter? She must be a vampire! Fetch the stake before she spreads her vampirism! A rare disease we now know as porphyria was once known as the “vampire syndrome” because anyone who had it might develop a sensitivity to light and grow pale. They might even crave blood. In the same vein (lol), victims of tuberculosis and the bubonic plague might have been so close to death that they were buried (or thrown into mass graves). Later, not actually being dead, when they slowly rose from their graves, witnesses might claim to have seen a vampire! Samira has taken this idea of vampirism as a disease one step further and paired it with colonialism. If a disease is the presence of something that attacks the body, then colonizers certainly count! (We’re looking at you, British Empire!) (Okay, okay, okay, we’re looking at U.S. forefathers, too.) In that way, vampires are definitely, 100 percent real.
In what other way might you interpret the metaphor of the vampire?
IN KIND
Kayla Whaley
THE SHADY OAK GAZETTE
Local Father Played Role in Handicapped Daughter’s Tragic Death
During Tuesday’s record-breaking snowstorm, Grant Williams, 53, reported his teenage daughter’s death to police and admitted his role in her passing. The severely disabled girl, Grace Williams, 17, had been wheelchair-bound since birth and was unable to eat, breathe or urinate without medical assistance.
Mr. Williams, a single father and science teacher at Robertson County High, confessed to police that he had administered lethal quantities of morphine early Tuesday evening. He told police his daughter’s suffering “had become unbearable” and that she “deserved to finally have some peace.”
Williams led police to his home, where he had initially intended to bury his daughter before the weather turned. When they arrived, the body was missing from his yard. Police believe wolves living on the heavily wooded property carried off her body before Williams and the police arrived around midnight. By that time, any tracks had been buried by the historic blizzard along with the rest of North Georgia.
“Grace’s short life and sudden death is a tragedy for her family and our community, but we can find solace in the fact that she has been saved from a lifetime of suffering,” Sheriff Darryl White