A Stake in the Heart of a Nation
The movies get it wrong -- all wrong.
When a vampire is staked through the heart, there is no gory splatter of blood and viscera -- no dusty dissemination -- no howling -- no screeching. Nothing. Disappointingly, when staked, the bloodsucker of legend simply falls to the floor. And lays there. Limp as four a.m. coke dick. In a fetal position and staring straight ahead as though in shock.
It's all a bit anticlimactic. You'd think one of the most powerful denizens of the supernatural world would at least offer some grandiosity in it's utter undoing. Instead it's the exact opposite. Nothing. Nada. Zilch!
This makes no sense, Dandy.
Vampires are the apex predators of The Void, majestic and malicious. They should go out with a blaze of glory -- take everything with them! Burn the fucking house down if they fail. Not simply slump to the cobblestones like some lowly goblin or sweaty D&D basement Satanist. But sure enough, there the vampire lay. Poor thing even landed in quite a humiliating position, with his pale tushy all exposed from beneath his fierce velvet cape, now but a wrinkled, tangled mess. For humility's sake, someone cover him back up.
I'm on good authority from a close vampire friend, my casual acquaintance and oftentimes frienemy Michaud, that such undead are quite cognizant once staked. The paralysis that overcomes a vampire should even the slightest toothpick of wood breach their cardiac organ is not without complete realization of their dire predicament. They apparently comprehend everything around them, but they simply cannot move -- can't act. This defense mechanism affords the vampire time to assess her situation. What steps brought her to this mess -- horrible, ham-fisted, Hillbilly hunters a'hootin' and a'hollerin' over her corpse as they ransack her beautiful crypt and destroy her artwork, some of it centuries old. Screaming how they never expected this outcome. How the vampire was certain to win. Of course she was! She's a regal fucking vampire! Intelligent, refined, vicious. Bested by some backwoods, white trash, vampire hunters with nothing but a carved tree limb. Pine, even! Not mahogany or oak, BUT PINE!
Disgraceful.
She lays there on her ancient oriental rug and stares at the ceiling, contemplating what went wrong. She'd worked so hard to make certain this result would never happen. She possessed an army of thralls to do her bidding. Every contingency was checked and rechecked to assure success, but nonetheless here she was, paralyzed and utterly aghast at the result. Stabbed through the heart, yet still heartbroken. In a few hours she'll be seeing her first sunrise in centuries. It'd be poetic were it not so pathetic.
Good riddance, tacky bitch!
I mention my fussy friend Michaud, a tacky bitch if ever there was one. (We all know your name was Mike before you moved to New York, Michaud.) Simply pour him a brandy with a few drops of baby's blood, and he'll go on and on about the time he managed to will a stake out of his heart. Simply thought on it hard enough and the wretched thing popped right out. (And don't get him started on how he ripped the hunter's throat out. Says he can still hear the glorious gurgling.)
Michaud swears that any vampire, any person even, can overcome a humiliating defeat if you simply think on it long enough.
The key is contemplating the present, ladies and gentlemen. Envisioning the steps to take, in the now, to push past crippling disappointment and fear -- both of which honestly do none of us any good. Then taking the steps to organize and create change in any way we can. Hypnotizing a butcher for weekly deliveries of pig's blood. Burrowing beneath an abandoned house until you can find a proper crypt. Creating small wins for yourself where once there was a major defeat.
Recovery from a stake to the heart is not without it's hardships. You now have trailer trash running amuck in the ruins of your gothic castle. Suddenly the villagers know you're not as impervious as you once appeared to be. Perhaps even former friends will bicker amongst themselves and fret that they're next. Everyone suddenly questions their perceptions of safety in a scary new world. But only by assuring yourself everything will be ok (and it really will be ok) can you take that first tentative step to righting the wrong. We must push through, and we can do it together.
Then we'll rip their fucking throats out.
