On Dying

Dearest Mother,

This dawn was a long time coming, yet I do not have long now and must get this last confession on paper. I think that was obvious from my previous letters. We are unnatural things, you and I. Looking down at my hands as I write this, I can’t help but imagine them as the pile of bone that they should be. The skin which should be dust, and the flesh that should have been food for the creeping things of death, are just as they were those many years ago when you ushered me through the gates of eternity. This makes us unnatural, this living outside the cycles of life and death.

Our hunger might be the only natural thing about us. All incarnate things hunger. Everything eats to survive. Do they all eat for the pleasure of it? I wonder…

Knowing this morning would come, I gluttoned myself of those most degenerate prey I am sometimes partial to hunting. Prey. I don’t see them as people anymore. That was the beginning of my end, the realization that I am so far removed from them that I don’t recognize their humanity. I’m sure of it. I may have floated the idea in a previous letter.

Yet, despite the melancholy of my existence, I still revel in their blood. Consuming their lives, tasting their essence on my lips after it is done, brings me waves of ecstasy. But what kind of existence is that, living only to consume the lives of these people around me? I’ve lost all passion for anything but the drinking of their blood.

Please, Mother, do not fret at this admission. I do not begrudge your choosing me. In that place and time, it was inevitable. Just as the coming sun is inevitable now. I believed in fate then, and believe in it now. The moment you pulled me into the shadows of death, I believe I was set on the path to this final sunrise.

The sky outside the windows is turning a pale shade of blue. The last of the stars are fading away. I am looking down at what I am writing now and my penmanship betrays just how old I truly am, and how much older you truly are. I wish I had your resiliance, but this old age is wearing on my soul.

Do we have souls, you and I? That’s a curious thought, isn’t it, that things such as ourselves might have souls despite the horrors that we commit on this path of darkness? I would hope that we don’t have a soul. I would hope that when the sun comes up over the trees, that that is just the end.

I’m looking at them now. Do you remember the trees here, behind my little house? I can see them in all their delicate detail against the lightening sky. I moved my desk and a small day bed to the little sunroom in the back of my house. Do you remember that little room, with its tall windows and stained glass transoms? I have spent hours back here, penning you letters, pushing the boundary for just how long I could stay here before my skin started to burn.

The colors of the sky are beautiful this morning. There are fleeting clouds and they are starting to resemble burning embers. I still have a little time though, but not much. The mantle clock on top of my bookcase hasn’t chimed yet.

I would be lying to you, Mother, if I were to say that I am unafraid. It’s the unknown which frightens me. I’m not afraid of the actual death I am about to experience. Pain is only momentary. We’ve seen others of our breed consumed in flame. It is a fairly quick process. As for the pain, I think we know that I have earned it. It’s the void, the crossing of that threshold which holds my terror.

Though I hope for nothingness, the prospect of being snuffed out like a candle flame strikes a panic in my chest that eternal damnation does not. I truly don’t know which would be worse.

I am reminded in this moment about those early nights when we would hunt the evening streets together. Do you ever think of those nights? I do, and often, but in an abstract way that feels far away. Now, however, as my own doom inches closer and closer to the horizon, I recall with such vivid clarity a particular man that I took. I was merciless, and indiscriminate, in those days as you must remember. I had no concern for their goodness or wickedness. I cared only for their beating hearts and the wonder they would yield to me. Honestly, have I really changed at all? I still do not care much either way what I might be depriving or sparing the world, respectively.

Anyway, I am thinking of that man long ago that begged me for mercy. Yes, there were many, but I am thinking specifically of the one who begged me because he was sure, in his heart of hearts, that he was destined for the pit. He wanted, desperately, to get right with God. You must remember. You stood, concealed in the night, watching as I disregarded his plea’s and consumed every last drop of his blood. His blood, as I am also sure you remember, was the most delicious I had ever tasted. I chased that deliciousness like an addict for months after.

As I am watching the coming day I can think of nothing else. Be assured, there will be no such plea from me.

The time is drawing close, and yet I still sit at this humble desk with pen in hand reminiscing with a shadow of you. Am I prolonging the inevitable? I am sure that I am. But soon, I will put this pen down, fold this letter into an envelope, and secure it in the little metal fire safe box at my feet. That will be the end of it. I will recline on that little creaking day bed and wait for the heat to break out on my skin and the fire to erupt, consuming me and this house. The only thing left will be the fire safe box with the letter addressed to you, Mother.

I wonder, what will you do upon reading this? Will you shrug and move on? Will you make another? Or will you follow me into the abyss? I can’t imagine so. It has been a lifetime since we were in the same city for more than an evening or two. I imagine you may reflect on the events of this morning, solemnly but in the far away sense you feel everything. Then I imagine you will collect all of the letters I have written you over this last year or so and set them afire, reducing even this to ash.

I am alright with that, if it is your choice. My name belongs on the wind. The memory of me, of the monster I am, belongs in the shadows of night. That is where we live, after all. That is where you found me, all of those lifetimes ago.

Do you remember? The cities of old, before electric light, had shadows the modern world will never know again. Was I meant to be your victim that evening? I remember that night being early enough still that a vague tint of blue remained in the western sky. The night was deep, in any case. I was making my way back to my room, a bit of wine making my gait slow and pleasurable. I never saw you coming. I was in your grasp and your fangs were in my neck before we hit the cobbled street. It was over before I knew what was happening, and you were gone.

That’s all it took, one single bite, to pass on this curse. I say curse now, but never before. We lived in the night and it was glorious until the sadness began to grow in these recent years.

There was not just one single bite, was there, Mother? I dragged myself back to my room, bleeding and sure that I would die. That next day the sun was blinding, and every inch of my body hurt. When night finally came, and I was too weak to light just a single candle, I blessed the peace the night brought. It was cool on my skin and my joints stopped throbbing for the first time in hours. I have often wondered, how long were you there with me, just outside of my perception? How long did you allow your hunger to build before you sank your fangs into the flesh of my chest. I didn’t care. I thought again that I was going to die. The serenity of that acceptance washed over me in waves. I yielded completely. Again, you were gone.

I died that next afternoon. The blue of the sky was so much like the sky outside my windows now. Because it is almost time, I want to reflect on my first death as I stand on the precipice of my second. I died that afternoon, alone in my bed. You had left the window ajar. The sky was beautiful and the breeze that billowed the humble drapes was like a lullaby. No one knew I was dead. The world went on outside that window. The other tenants in the other rooms went about their days, oblivious to horrors and the marvel happening all at once.

Although I was dead, I was completely aware. My chest ceased to rise and fall, and no amount of willfulness could command it to do so. My eyes were open, and becoming dry as I could not blink. I was grateful that I still faced the window. When, I thought, would my spirit separate from my body at last? When would I journey outward through that window and upward into the sky?

That separation, that final exhalation releasing me from this world, never came. The rays of the sun played slowly across the room until I was once again wrapped in that twilight. And there you were. How long you were there I could not tell you, and I have often wondered at that as I have about the night before. Like a cat, your eyes shone from the corner of the room. You stepped forward, standing at the foot of my bed. It was then that I realized I could move. Do you remember? Do you remember the look of amazement on my face as I sat up to meet you? Do you ever think about that?

We are dead, aren’t we? Truly dead. I implore your memory in the hope of igniting something in you, something I feel missing from myself.

Here we are. All of these years and all of these letters later and you have not responded to me. I wonder at that, too. Have you, yourself, stepped out into the morning? Have you found the death you bring comes from a place that will never be satiated? Have I been pleading with a ghost all along?

The day is almost here. I fear I am out of time, at last. No. I do not fear. That is wrong. This was meant to end this way. With these final words I bid you farewell, dear Mother. If you feel you must destroy this last bit of me, I will not begrudge you that. However, I ask you, please do not forget my name. Do not let the shadows of our night swallow me whole, as though I were the last taste of blood on your lips. Whisper my name from time to time into that sweet night, that I might, maybe, just hear you from across the veil and find some comfort in that.

I go now. The sun’s heat is just behind those trees. I love you dear Mother. Until we meet again…

—S—