Sep 23 2007
American Vampire in New York
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But the blood is wasted, splattered on clothes, on walls, on streets, or seeping into sand. There’s so much sand there, all of it rich with iron. “To see hematocrit in a grain of sand, hold hemoglobin in the palm of your hand…”
By Adam Engel
9/23/07
I died for your sins—almost. I never quite died complete. But still. You didn’t notice either way. It’s been a year, more or less. You didn’t call my wife. You didn’t send a card.
I don’t know why I stay on. Something in me clings to this wretched place. I refuse to leave. Perhaps I feel I deserve something. I broke my back carrying the burden of America. They gave me painkillers (pills, not Marines). Oxycontin, oxycodone. Now I’m addicted and must pay and pay and pay for more. Lucky my wife works.
I can’t sleep, but I’m clear, clear in the head. I need blood. I read the articles on the Web. So many writing, nobody doing. I look at clips of children stained with blood, or jetting blood from severed limbs, and think: waste, waste, waste.
All that blood and none for me. Do you think it’s a coincidence, me being a vampire and all, with all this blood around, everywhere I turn, and not drop for me, unless I pay and pay and pay?
It should be free, but the medical establishment, the ones who hooked me on the painkillers (pills, not Marines) won’t give me my fix unless I go to a Pain Management Specialist, and of course they don’t take insurance, so I must pay and pay and pay. Do you think an internist in a “troubled” neighborhood could get away with that?
These Pain Management Specialists are drug dealers to the rich. If you wonder why there’s a war on drugs that’s why. So doctors can get rich and the rich can have their drugs. Also, America is insane, which means if you’re not insane, you must be mad.
I need strong, organic hashish for this TERRIBLE NAUSEA, but all I can score is “synthetic cannaboids,” “plastic pot” for $30 a pill. It wasn’t the war “against” drugs, it was the war “versus” drugs, and BigPharma won, in the short term, over nature. Hasn’t anyone read “Frankenstein?” A vampire must feed on life, not “synthetic consumables.”
But the blood, the blood. Doctor’s call my condition Diamond Blackfan Anemia, a rare disease, 600 known cases worldwide. Mostly children who die well before thirty. I’m forty, ten years overdue. I’m dead but not dead.
Undead.
The undead (surely I am not alone: my comrades are vampires, not the other 599 sufferers of this mythical disease) are condemned to night hours glued to screens. Gush of words (same old, same old) and blood, blood, blood. Worlds of blood untouchable. Life divided from death by screens.
If you only knew how frustrated a vampire becomes when he is restrained, restricted, under government control, corporate control, medical control, that is, control of the medical profession, the medical industry, the medical establishment, whose purpose is not to heal, but to make heel.
I need blood and all I see are torrents of blood the painkillers (not pills, Marines) unleash daily; tidal waves of ruby nourishment seep into the earth a world away, wasted. By right that blood belongs to me.
For some, the living, this war is about oil. I won’t dispute that. But for me and my kind it is a harvest of blood, a bounty of blood—wasted, discarded, like sour coleslaw at a bitter family picnic.
“Why?” I ask. Why can’t they fill their canteens with blood or capture it in containers and freeze it and send it to the clinic and disperse it, without charge, so I can live and work and be sociable with my countrymen who relish the blood almost as much as I? Though, wasteful Americans, they see it not as their salvation, merely their due. Like the oil meant to sustain their “way of life.” A gusher of oil would make them cringe if the liquid was not harnessed and contained and purified and shipped in barrels back to the Homeland to fuel their cars and heat their homes.
But the blood is wasted, splattered on clothes, on walls, on streets, or seeping into sand. There’s so much sand there, all of it rich with iron. “To see hematocrit in a grain of sand, hold hemoglobin in the palm of your hand…”
They think nothing of the vampire who needs this blood to live like them, to work like them, to be insane like them, to sleep the night away, wake up refreshed, ready for work: the cubicle work, the Mega store work, the retail fast food convenience store counter work.
What would they be without their oil and healthy blood and energy to work, work, work? So much they take for granted, they think only for themselves and their strong backs not broken by the burden of America.
Why me? Why must I be burdened? Why did my back break under the strain?
They don’t care about the vampires who need blood, the broken ones who need painkillers (not Marines, pills) but are too tired from lack of blood to cross the street for a prescription, too tired to wait for the pharmaceutical chain to fill it—they don’t carry painkillers (pills, not Marines) in stock you know, they must order them special. Why is this? I’ll tell you: spite. They love to see a vampire writhe in pain; they love the misery of the weak ones whose backs break under the burdens they themselves bear with alacrity and ease. They love to see the blood seep into sand instead of my veins because…because…they are insane, not mad, like me, from lack of sleep, lack of blood, undead yet in pain; they are insane, and wasteful and selfish to send their pain-killers (not pills, Marines) to harvest blood by the barrel-full and dump it on the ground or paint the clothes and shattered homes of donors.
But if so much as a drop of oil is spilt, heads will roll because oil is their poison, simple as that. So they think little or nothing of blood for the bloodless or painkillers (pills, not Marines) for backs broken under their burden.
The only painkillers they recognize are the soldiers who harvest blood yet leave it there to desiccate and rot, for their homes are heated and their tanks are full. They can rest cozy on the couch or drive to the mall, while I am cold, and tired, and in pain.
What would it cost them? Who would it harm, if they stopped to think, even for a moment, of the vampire, and opened the spigots of blood, and let the pharmacists deliver painkillers (drugs, not Marines) and bags of real, organic Marijuana, free of charge…to me?
Adam Engel is a senior contributing editor for Cyrano’s Journal Online and can be reached at
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Mr. Engel writing is overwhelming. He is best of this time. Phyllis Rutigliano
Don’t mean to sound callous but I sense alot of depression, obviously.
For those who have suffered near fatal depression, I can relate. Big darkness hard to overcome.
Depression can be and often is at the root biochemical and/or pathogenic and can be allieviated by restoring balance. Simple carbohydrate addiction is a huge mill stone for reasons perhaps not immediately apparent, though at times a saviour.
Stress overload causes serotonin/ beta endorphin imbalance, which can be as the author notes chemically mitigated either temporaily or longer term as a band -aid until something better comes along. Nutrient restoration, and parasitic destruction can greatly reduce discomfort and aid healing as well by restoring balance and reducing overload.
Dwelling constantly without cease on the world’s darkness can take it’s toll, becoming emotionally addictive, while often failing to achieve the desired outcome of creating the desired change.
One need not look away from the darkness, turning a blind eye. But how do we view the darkness, can we observe it without it swallowing us? And if it swallows us can we truly be there to shine the light for others?
Learning to be inevitably all alone is perhaps the hardest part.
Overcoming that is perhaps the greatest challenge and potentially the greatest “cure” ever.
JUst a sharing,
No preaching or callousness intended,
T.A.
People are depressed because our country is draining the blood of the world - if you aren’t depressed about the state of the world chances are you are blind as a bat. If you feel good in today’s day and age - pass the drugs.
Sure, I don’t disagree, as I said. Sadness and grief are natural.
But, did you only read a small part of my post?
You may have missed, the larger message.
I’ll say it again. I have no clue where EXACTLY the author is or is going.I simply offer my self to OTHERS who may be looking for a way out. BUt then again maybe nobody is and my words are of little use. I don’t know. I simply offer them.
Once we feel the initial sadness, why do we have to stay there, and is it beneficial? Perhaps. Perhaps not. Sometimes the sadness is AMPLIFIED by unseen “powers” and simply goes round and round and round in our heads helping nobody, especially ourselves.
If folks WANT or need depression fine. If not there may be methods to send it away and still not forget the experiences learned.
If we stay in the darkness forever who does it help? Is sadness meant to be wallowed in, or as a tool to take us FROM the darkness into the Light?
Can it also HURT others? Do we want that?
Surely we don’t want that.
The truth will not be TOTALLY how we feel about it, but how if effects others assuming that is our intention, obviously.
We are all perhaps in a slightly different space, again I DON’T offer criticism as much as I simply offer where I am, where I’ve been and where I hope to be as time moves on.
Only that
Regards,
T.A.