SOMA VAMP, an excerpt from a novella in progress
Beulah codes games South of Market in San Francisco and really really wants to be a vampire...
She wants to die spectacularly, suddenly, explosively with bits of Beulah stuck in the hair of gawkers and bystanders. Or, grasp the life immortal laid out so enticingly in Twilight and True Blood. She loved Anne Rice’s book Interview with a Vampire, and really loved the movie. Living in a dark warm decadence made up of handsome men with hair that never falls out wearing puffy shirts, tight pants and that pale, pale luminosity. She pictures yummy LeStat de Lioncourt, the thousand year old vampire being interviewed – he is dead sexy with ice blue eyes against a background of white. She forgives the casting of Tom Cruise, figuring the men were shorter then, what with the crappy diets before the blood regimen. For those particular vampires, she is ready to offer up hot holy Blood, swim upstream against the River of Life while hunky immortals pillage her shores. Just not death in any ordinary way, not from some wasting disease, or Gaia forbid, old age...
She fingers her iPod and replays Eagle’s song Witchy Woman, listening carefully to the lyrics – especially “Raven hair and ruby lips, sparks fly from her fingertips” – yep, that’s me, she thinks. That line pretty much describes her present situation, the nowness of her power, all currents of electric youth and yearning. Like right now, in her mid-20’s, her face, her body, her hair will never look better. Eventually, age will bow her head and slow her walk. There will be sagging and wrinkling – all that handiwork of gravity’s pull. But what if it could be stopped at this very moment? Witchy Woman is still playing: “I know you want a lover, but let me tell you brother, she’s been sleepin’ in the devil’s bed”. If the devil looks like Brad Pitt - yeah, ok, I’ll sleep in that bed. I am a wannabe vampire, frozen forever in the best body I will ever have.
She thinks longingly about the magic of compounding, just letting the money make money by building up layers of itself. It takes time, decades even, but just a lump of cash will grow and grow, until eventually, she will not have to work. Vampires probably save their money in Certificates of Deposit – super safe, and even at 1%, think of how many dollars that would be in 100 years. And as for accumulating that wealth in the first place, of course, she would have to find a job with night hours, but with telecommuting and texting, it could work. It’s not like coders were up during daylight hours anyway....
Beulah shakes her black curls, gives herself one last look in the mirror...From the ground floor, she embarks on a brisk walk, deftly sidestepping puddles of yellow yuck – the smell marking the edges of Harrison Street as “up and coming”. Her brand new Versace Palazzo Booties made a satisfying thunking clatter, not at all like that plastic-y rattle sound cheaper shoes made. You can hear the quality, she thinks, not to mention they made my butt look fabulous.
...to be continued
Copyright © Catherine G. Tripp, published by Pilcrow and Dagger magazine in 2016
She fingers her iPod and replays Eagle’s song Witchy Woman, listening carefully to the lyrics – especially “Raven hair and ruby lips, sparks fly from her fingertips” – yep, that’s me, she thinks. That line pretty much describes her present situation, the nowness of her power, all currents of electric youth and yearning. Like right now, in her mid-20’s, her face, her body, her hair will never look better. Eventually, age will bow her head and slow her walk. There will be sagging and wrinkling – all that handiwork of gravity’s pull. But what if it could be stopped at this very moment? Witchy Woman is still playing: “I know you want a lover, but let me tell you brother, she’s been sleepin’ in the devil’s bed”. If the devil looks like Brad Pitt - yeah, ok, I’ll sleep in that bed. I am a wannabe vampire, frozen forever in the best body I will ever have.
She thinks longingly about the magic of compounding, just letting the money make money by building up layers of itself. It takes time, decades even, but just a lump of cash will grow and grow, until eventually, she will not have to work. Vampires probably save their money in Certificates of Deposit – super safe, and even at 1%, think of how many dollars that would be in 100 years. And as for accumulating that wealth in the first place, of course, she would have to find a job with night hours, but with telecommuting and texting, it could work. It’s not like coders were up during daylight hours anyway....
Beulah shakes her black curls, gives herself one last look in the mirror...From the ground floor, she embarks on a brisk walk, deftly sidestepping puddles of yellow yuck – the smell marking the edges of Harrison Street as “up and coming”. Her brand new Versace Palazzo Booties made a satisfying thunking clatter, not at all like that plastic-y rattle sound cheaper shoes made. You can hear the quality, she thinks, not to mention they made my butt look fabulous.
...to be continued
Copyright © Catherine G. Tripp, published by Pilcrow and Dagger magazine in 2016