Vampire, Voodoo & Destiny's Bitch

The Vampire

I awake and roll out of bed. I slip my dressing gown on and prepare to go downstairs for breakfast.

The light is somewhat 'pearly' and I know that I am still dreaming; a dream within a dream.

I sense that the Vampire is close; he has been stalking me for a while now. I get back into bed and swiftly fall asleep again.

I rise refreshed and the light is natural. I will have no trouble with the Vampire now.

Once again, I slip my robe on; no, for the first time, for it was only a dream before.

I am looking forward to breakfast; I can almost smell the sizzling bacon. The birds are beginning to sing, and it is good to be alive.

I descend to the first-floor landing and sense the presence of the Vampire. A shadow passes ominously along the window. His powers are increasing, no doubt of that.

I turn and tiptoe back up the stairs and I pray that he does not hear me. Surreptitiously, I clamber under the covers and surrender myself to sleep.

I stir again and I am fully conscious. I have confounded the Vampire; even he cannot keep me asleep forever. A dream within a dream within a dream - clever. He nearly had me in his icy grasp.

I descend the stairs; they feel reassuringly solid, and I can actually smell the bacon.

I open the kitchen door. My grandmother is at the stove.

"Morning, did you sleep well?" she inquires.

"Yes, thanks!"

I do not tell her about the Vampire; it would spook her.

I sit down at the table, and she places the cooked breakfast in front of me.

"Thank you," I say, then add: "You're dead, aren't you?"

My grandmother has indeed been deceased for over twenty-five years. Why did I not realise that?

"There's someone at the door for you," she says.

Clever. Very clever.

Defeat is close.

Behind the frosted glass panels towers the dark figure of him - the Vampire.

I swing open the door and recognise the features of the Vampire - they are mine.

"What is it you seek from me? To suck out my soul?"

"Why do you run from me? Why do you run from the truth?" he hisses.

"And what is the truth that I must know?"

"You are just a dream, dreaming in the mind of God."

"And what if God wakes..."

I awake. I am in my flat.

It was all indeed just a dream...

Voodoo

He woke with a start in a bed that was not his.

He reached out and switched the bedside light on - it was not his bedside light, and the woman sleeping next to him was not his wife. He looked down at the muscular dark-skinned arms - they were not his arms.

He slipped out of the bed in the room that was not his and walked to the door as the woman that was not his wife stirred.

He walked across the landing in the house that was not his house and swung open the door to the bathroom that was not his. He then urinated in a toilet that was not his toilet with a penis that was not his penis. He flushed a toilet handle he had never flushed before and washed the hands that were not his hands in a sink with gold plated handles he had never seen before.

He looked into the mirror and the face that stared back was not his - it was the face of his enemy. He then walked back out of the bathroom -- he desperately needed to dream another dream.

Without warning there was shouting and the sound of gunfire. Men rushed out of rooms and went to his side. He did not know these men, but these men knew him, were loyal to him.

Then the men around him began to fall as if in slow motion. And when they were all still and bloody on the floor another face appeared around the door. The face was smiling, and the face was his.

How had he done it? How had the 'Master Criminal swapped bodies with the Chief of Police?

"Voodoo," The Master Criminal mouthed before blowing his brains out, the brains that weren't really his, with a single shot...

Destiny's Bitch

I am walking along on the damp sand close to the water. Random strands of seaweed. The briny air. A cool breeze.

I am between sleeping and waking.

I'm kind of going in a directionless direction -- but aren't we all?

The to-and-froing of the waves, the breathing of the ocean...

I look up and see that the sky is smeared and streaked and blended, orange and pink and purple and blue. Beautiful.

I look along and make out what looks like wreckage...

I hasten my pace and the sand attempts to pull at my feet, slow me down, impede my progress...

In front of me is the shattered and smashed hull of a yacht. Scattered and strewn along the shore's edge, the boundary between the fluid, the uncertain, and the solid, safe, and sure and firm...

I bend down and pick up a length of shattered hull. Hold it in my hands. Turn it over. Examine it.

There is writing, fancy script, a name, a chosen name, and written, painted in gold letters upon pure white is: Destiny's Bitch

Destiny's Bitch. How apt. How karmic. Fate. Cruel fate.

I wonder if anyone has survived.

Destiny's Bitch.

Yeah, we're all 'destiny's bitch'.

I carry on strolling in a kind of disconsolate way...