Cuento

This wonderful space I’m into…

To Nate, he knows why…

To be a vampire, and to be a vampire in this modern, civilized world is hard enough to drive you to drink tomato juice in the day the very same Dracula was born, day in which we celebrate our main festivity. You have to wear jeans, and chew gum, and go to the movies, and talk about globalization, and be republican or democrat or independent, and be catholic or Buddhist or atheist or indifferent to God –if there is one-, and get a job or be unemployed, and this, and that, and this beyond that…

Who cares about your essence? Who cares about the fact that I’m supposed to suck people’s blood night after night after night?

They don’t give a damn dime about anything but their problems. O! Their problems! Their eternal and absolutely primary reason to demonstrate that there is something wrong with them. They call it: “The human condition”; the freaking-go-outside-and-whine-about-it-as-loud-as-you-can human condition. I have come to the conclusion that they only see what they want to see. Nothing else.

Nothing else.

I remember the dialogue I had with this girl I was about to empty out of her vital, red seed, two weeks ago at the subway station.

-What are you doing here so late, beautiful little bird? -I said in my best English.

-Nothing. I’m here doing nothing. All my life I have done nothing. I wake up in the mornings and do nothing after having dreamed of nothing because I was tired of doing nothing the day after. My life is filled with nothingness, which is nothing. Day after day, night after night, step after step, heartbeat after heartbeat, thought after thought, are completed with nothingness. As a matter of fact, you are not talking to me right now. You are talking to nothing that one day, a long time ago, was a little girl called Jenny. As a matter of fact, I truly consider that you are nothing and everything is so. You are wasting your time, Mr. whatever-your-name-was. Time is also, nothing. –And then she laughed.La reputísima de su madre. La putona reputísima de su madre. I have a very distinguish pride. Come on! I wasn’t going to empty her out. She was empty already. What’s the price for your soul, humans? Is it that cheap? Fucking A!!! Your blood, humans, is supposed to be dulce and útil, like the best performance or symphony. Sweet because it has to carry along your trees and your sunsets and your rivers and your buildings and your cars and your books and the names of those who you love and the names of those who you will love and ideals and the present and the day you lost your first tooth and the day you kissed for the very first time and the few days you sat under the apple or orange or banana or vaya-usted-a-saber-cuál-fruta tree and looked up at the sky and saw that star and laughed because you knew that it was yours and only yours. Is your soul that cheap that you have forgotten about all these random acts of happiness? And useful because you certainly know that your blood is going to freeze the day you die and time is running and you have to share your blood with other’s and you have to hug and kiss and love and cry and laugh the others, to your brothers and sisters and their eyes and their mothers and fathers who you didn’t know but you respect and worship because they shared their blood and their humanness with others who you don’t know either but you also respect. Dulce and útil. Dulce and útil. Dulce y útil. Sweet y útil. Dulce y useful. Sweet y useful. Dulce y útil. Sweet and useful… Shit!

I think humans have labeled ‘everything’ so much that they have forgotten about ‘everything’ and only take a look at the label. What is shit? Give me the “s”! S! Give me the “h”! H! Give me the “i”! I! Give me the “t”! T! What does it say? SHIT! What does it say? SHIT! What does it say? SHIT! And do they say that “shit” is a bad word? They have labeled everything so much that they even have bad words… Politics of good vocabulary, correctness of therapies on Saturday’s evening… baloney. God –if there is one- bless America, the world, my fellow vampires, Jim Carrey and myself. Labels, what are thou done?

But I’m sorry. I almost forgot the fact that they love the environment. People are dying in China, in Africa, in America, in Latin America, in la Conchinchina and they love the environment. Hug your tree! Save your dog! Go after your flower and water it and add the expenses as tax deductibles! And if you do good, if you really do good, in three or four years we will send you the applications so you can belong to your long dreamed green party… Aleluya para el green party…

How the fuck can they respect and love the environment if they don’t love the others and above all, they don’t love themselves?

Why am I getting so mad?

Vampires of the world get united!!! Let’s fight so we can suck again that spirit that used to dwell everybody’s blood! Let’s wake humans up! Forget about the unions. Forget about manifestations. Forget about newspapers. Let’s become humans for a little bit. Let’s love and be the way they used to be. I know it is going to take a long, long, long, looooooooong time but who cares? We have the whole eternity to wait. They only have their time and their blood. I envy them. And you know what? Secretly, I want to be like them. I want to be like them because this wonderful place I’m into has a lot of potential. They don’t trust themselves and therefore they quit. But this place has a lot of potential… I can die for it…

Let me now sing a song and smoke a cigarette. It’s been enough for today…

New York, New York…      

Juan F. Pulido