Vampire's Lament

By P.T. Dilloway

Dear Editor,

On behalf of the vampire community, I would like to clear up some misconceptions about us.  The way we have been portrayed in books, films, and television for over a century now is degrading and simply untrue.  The time has come to set the record straight.

For the most part we aren’t much different than anyone else.  We go to work, pay our taxes, vote, and watch TV like you do.  Sure we don’t go out to McDonald’s or the grocery store for food.  Sometimes we appropriate the occasional sheep or cow or homeless man, but most of us want to live our lives quietly and be left alone.

Yet you continue to bandy about these stereotypes.  When Stoker’s book came out, we were supposed to all be princes or dukes who lived in castles.  Do you have any idea how much a castle costs?  Then in the 1930s you expected us to wear tuxedoes, talk with an Eastern European accent, and fly in through windows disguised as a bat.  I didn’t even wear a tuxedo to my wedding and I hate to break it to you, but I’m from Indiana; I’m as American as you are—more so in some cases.  And a bat?  Even if I could change my shape, I wouldn’t go around as a disease-ridden flying rodent.

It got worse in the 1990s.  There was that awful Coppola movie and the one with Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt.  So then you expect us all to sport Byronic locks and get in touch with our feelings.  Do you know how much grief I took from my wife about that?  “He’s loved his wife for five hundred years while you won’t even take out the garbage.”  On and on it went.

But this latest trend, it really crosses the line.  Now I’m supposed to be some kind of James Dean wanna-be wooing whiny high school virgins?  Sorry, but I’ve got a wife and nine kids.  Nine!  I’ve got a mortgage and braces and college to pay for; I don’t have time to rescue some stuck-up girl every time it snows or she gets lost.  And that sparkling thing?  Pure BS.  I so much as get under a UV light and my skin starts to peel like an onion.  Imagine your worst case of sunburn ever and multiply it by a thousand.

Look, we understand it’s entertainment, but these stereotypes are harmful.  I don’t want my sons to think they have to look like Rob Pattinson and save damsels in distress.  I want them to get a good education and a good job like all of you.  And I don’t want them to think of themselves as monsters either.  They didn’t ask to be what they are any more than anyone else does. ...

To read the whole of Vampire's Lament buy the e-book "We Are Now" for Kindle, Kobo, iBooks or through Google Play