Grave Reflections

The mist across the graves was silver fleece felted through the brown earth and between the protruding tombstone teeth. The wan face of the moon witnessed the shadows spreading on the ground below. Halloween night thrummed with the magic of darkness. The beat of every human heartbeat echoed in the air. Sweat saturated with adrenaline and sugary treats, mingled with the smells of dirt and candles from glowing Jack O Lanterns on every porch stairs. The iron gates of the cemetery creaked as I exited. Rats and beetles scurried at my feet as my cloaked figure strode through the neighborhood.

“My children,” I cooed to the creatures of the night. “Our harvest will come.” The pallor of my flesh was undetected among the latex tentacles and fangs, and pointy hats. The scatter of trick or treaters made for low lying fruit.

“Patience,’ I commanded as the rats scuttled into the bushes. Dread permeated my core in anticipation of what would come next. The years of impaling my enemies, drinking their blood from goblets carved from their skulls, adorning castle hallways with their entrails prepared me for this challenge. My rest in dirt, alive with maggots, worms and voles and the putrid smell of decay, emboldened me pursue this next task. Lurking. Hunting. Sating my cursed soul. Easy.

This would be an escalation of unthinkable torture.

I pushed the door into a tan brick building and climbed the stairs. The air was stale.

Maria was there just as it was foretold. In her turquoise arm chair, her carotid artery exposed above her beige sweater set. Towering over her, gazing with hypnotic intensity, I stepped out of the shadows, eager for the fragrant rush of adrenaline I would cause her.

“Please have a seat,” she gestured unshaken, to the black loveseat across from her. “So, Vlad, what brings you here today?”

My unbeating heart fell. I would need to be my most foreboding.

“I think you know,”my eyes penetrated hers, knowing she would be afraid now.

My cloaked arm half covered my face.

“That’s avoidant. We talked about boundaries last session, Vlad. If you don’t put the work in you won’t make any progress.” Maria sipped her tea. “How did what we talked about last time sink in?”

My shoulders slumped. I swaddled myself in my cape like a tiny baby.

 “It’s just so hard.” Here they came, the blood tears.I flopped onto the couch. “You think you are connecting with someone. Like they really like you, then nothing. ” Maria looked so tenderly at me as she handed me a kleenex. Is she this attuned to all of her patients? Wolfman? Does she extend this warmth to Mr Perpetual-Cutoffs?

My chest was tight. I wished I was back in my coffin.

“Vlad, we talked about this. Exsanguination is a pretty big obstacle to human relationships.”

“Not even a little bite?” I was sobbing now.

“It’s a bit of a deal breaker.”

My body twisted into the fetal position, shaking and sobbing.

“Vlad. I can imagine the terrible tension you must feel in both wanting companionship and needing to feast on the flesh of your companions. If my practice with the undead has taught me anything,” Maria sipped her tea. “It’s that you are only truly monsters because you are afraid.”

“I am?”

Maria nodded.

“What am I afraid of? Really? Me? I am the Prince of Darkness. What’s the big bad that I am so afraid of?”

“Intimacy.”

My white hands with dagger nails stroked my chin. She had a point. A crack formed in my armour and I started to let her words in.

“You eat people before they can really get to know you because you are scared that if they do, they might not like what they see.”

No mortal had ever dropped a heavier balm of wisdom on my undead soul. What is this witchcraft? I felt like she had exposed all the organs of my body and was peeling them apart with tweezers and forceps. Therapy was perfectly wicked. I should have studied psychiatry.

“I see. So what is to be done?”

“You know I can’t tell you what to do. I am here to give you tools and insights to help in your life or death. You have identified that eating people is not serving you right now-”

“Of course not. Don’t be ridiculous.I have rats and Renfield for servants. I’m not crazy.”

 “Not what I meant. I mean it does not align with your desire for company.”

“So then what? Stop eating? Cold turkey?”

“My practice is about harm reduction. I would never promote abstaining altogether. That only leads to a shame spiral when you exsanguinate another person. Just try to do it less.”

“Try to do it less.” I digested this idea. “What do I do instead?”

Maria looked at her watch. I hated when she did that. It meant our session was coming to an end. When her neck craned the pulse of her carotid, now hastened with the anticipation of the session end, beckoned.

“Well let’s try a little exercise. Hand to your heart or the space where your heart once was. Close your eyes, ask yourself: what do I need right now? Picture your life. Before. What did little Vlad need to feel safe? To feel good?”

I closed my eyes just as she had.

Thoughts flooded me. The oceans of time conquering, torturing. The carnage. The ages passed. The blood flowed. What was it that I always wanted? To be loved? What was the singular desire that drove me? That made me rise from the coffin in a ceaseless pursuit?

The answer struck me like a shovel hitting a coffin.

The end of the session was upon us. I would like to say I didn’t kill my therapist and feast on her blood, but I am trying to have a better relationship with the truth. I will say I did feel really guilty while I ate her heart. That’s progress, isn’t it?