Installment #1
Uh, okay, so my name's Ian... Ian Roberts. This is kind of awkward. I mean, I'm writing to a notebook. I'm talking to a notebook. Well, my future self, I guess, when I read it later when I’m some old geezer. But really, when is the future? Now? In the next second? In the next millennium? By the time you anticipate the future, it's already become the present and before you know it, it's the past; it's already rolled past you like a perpetual wheel.
That is so our next hit single. "Perpetual Wheel." Ha.
Okay, sorry. I tend to go off on a tangent. That's going to become rather common while you're reading this. Or I guess while I'm reading this. Ugh. This is so confusing. I hate time sometimes.
Well, first I guess I'll tell you a little bit about myself. I sing in a band. We don't really have a name yet. Well, that's a lie, we kind of do, but it's really crappy. That is, I'm afraid it'll stick before we decide to change it. My best best friends all play in this band with me--Jon, Sky and Dylan. They’re pretty much the raddest guys on the planet.
I guess we're making it pretty big. I mean, we just got a tour manager since we'll be touring across the west coast this summer. I'm so glad this is finally happening, though. It's going to be the "turning point of our career," Robi says (our tour manager). But anyway, we as a band thought that it would be the wisest decision to drop out of high school when junior year is over. That, and the fact that we'd had enough of pointless classes. Like knowledge in Baroque art and quadratic equations will get you anywhere in life.
I'm going to be kind of cocky and say that our band is definitely not bad at all. It really is true. Why else would record companies actually call us back when we send them our demos? I mean, even though we've only played at open mics and gigs at coffee shops, we've been getting some really good feedback from all our friends. (We’ve been sneaking into concerts handing out our CDs to anyone who will take them.)
So after school ended a couple of days ago, my older brother Mike gave me this vintage composition notebook he found at a flea market in Italy. (Long story short, he's a freelance photographer. I'm hoping he'll do a photo shoot for us before we go on tour next month.) It’s totally my style. If I were a notebook, this is probably what I’d look like, with the blue-and-green swirls all over the cover and silver-lined pages. Even though it’s worn and the pages are a bit yellowed, I love it. Mike told me to write everything that goes on in my life, so who knows? Maybe this notebook will hold epic lyrics to some of our music.
There's also something else. I shouldn't even think about bringing it up, but... I don't know. I really wish I could vent about it in this. But, like I said, no one's going to be reading this anyway. Only myself. I'll lock this thing with a bulletproof padlock if I have to keep anyone from reading this. Besides, if I didn’t say anything about it at all, then it would be really dumb to even bother to write anything about my life. Oh well. Even if anyone did end up reading this, they'd probably just think I'm crazy anyway... Jon, Sky, Dylan and I are vampires.
There. I said it. Well, wrote it. Okay, first off, it’s not the stupid stereotypical mythological kind. I mean, yeah, it's the general idea, but we can see ourselves in mirrors. No, we don't turn into bats. And yes, we do have a “special thirst,” to put it mildly. We drink blood, I mean. But we've learned to... control ourselves, if you will. But in the end, being a rock star vampire works out really well. We don't have to spend the little money that we have on food, and we only perform at night. (We are allergic to the sun, sadly.) Most of the time, it really works to our advantage as far as being in a punk rock band.
It hasn't always been this way, though. It happened at the beginning of junior year. We still aren't really sure what happened, but we've boiled it down to this concert that we went to the day before our first day of school. We don't remember much of what happened that night, and all of us got really sick afterward. It was pretty horrible, the guys and I were all in really rough shape. It was like a raging fever, except we were ice-cold. Everything we tried to eat would reverse its path in our stomachs. We had to miss the entire first month of school. We covered it up as mono, so we got let off easily.
That was when the weird stuff started to happen. I remember the first time I stepped out into the sun after being in bed for weeks. It literally burned my skin. It felt like white hot pokers all over my body. It hurt so badly I had to take an ice-cold shower for about an hour to stop the burning sensation. Finally, after a lot of experimenting, Dylan (the science freak of the bunch) figured out that with a specific brand of sunscreen lotion and a generous amount of cover-up (that’s makeup… I didn’t even know that until this whole immortal undead thing), we would be able to go out in the sun safely, but only for about an hour at the most. Once Skylar stayed outside for too long, and he almost melted. And I do not mean that metaphorically.
The thing that I think weirded me out the most was our eyes. Mine always change color. I think it's like a mood sensor: When I'm calm they'll be a deep blueish color, but whenever I'm "thirsty"... they turn this scary fiery red. I looked in the mirror one day, and I actually thought that my eyes were on fire. I had to buy color contacts to cover them up when I went to school. My eyes are now Ostentatious Ocher.
Oh, and surprisingly, I don’t really mind not needing to eat. The smell, the taste of human food does nothing for my senses. But sleeping is something I really miss. Sleeping used to be a sport for me, next to songwriting and playing my guitar. The guys miss it like crazy too. But, on a practical note, no sleep gives you a lot of time to do stuff, like work on songs, practice guitar or even hit the mall (the ones that are open, anyway).
As far as the whole blood thing, the only way that we can get by right now is the fact that Jon’s uncle works as an EMT at the local hospital. Every month or so, we raid the freezers and steal blood from the Red Cross people. A couple of pints for each of us is enough to last a month. My favorite is O negative. Dylan’s working on trying to clone blood molecules or something like that, because sooner or later all that “misplaced” donated blood is going to be noticed. Also, going on tour will produce something of a challenge for finding fuel.
I always have to be careful around people, for various reasons. First of all, there's the whole mortal prey thing, so I couldn't ever, ever be thirsty when I was at school. It's really not that hard to resist the temptation, but it's always best to be safe. Also, I try as best as I can not to touch other people, because then they'll think I'm a walking corpse. Literally. I mean, my average body temperature is about half of a regular human's body temperature. One time, my lab partner in Chemistry brushed against my forearm, and I had to brush it off as a really bad cold or something pathetic like that.
I hated having to lie to so many people. I mean, before all of this, I was an honest guy. But I literally had to wear this bogus mask to fit into the rest of the crowd at school. The fake eyes, the fake skin, the fake life when I went to school were all so unbearable. That was another reason why we left school. We really couldn't take it anymore.
I think the only reason I survived all of this was the fact that I got to hang out with the guys almost every day of the year. It felt so right, because I didn't have to be fake around them since they're just like me. We can tell anything to each other, and jamming the nights away to our new songs is such a blast. If I didn’t have the guys with me, I don’t know what I would have done.
But there’s really only one thing that really bugs me about being a vampire.
There’s this girl. Her name’s Des. She’s amazing… long story short, we met up with her from a record company and she might actually join our band. Which is awesome, don’t get me wrong, but I don’t know how I’ll be able to even focus onstage with her. We did a jam session with her a few days ago, and I could not stop looking at her. I felt like some lovesick idiot, but I couldn’t stop thinking about her after I met her. Even a week later I can still remember her beautiful hair, eyes, lips, smile….
And she sings like an angel. No, better. You can’t compare Des’s voice to anyone else’s. It’s so unreal, yet… I can’t even think of a word for it.
But I can’t fall in love with her. What if I told the guys, and they wouldn’t let us be together? I mean, we’re vampires. We guys will be walking this earth as long as the very soil exists beneath our feet. We’ll be people—no, not even people, just these things on the side of the road watching the rest of humanity roll past us. We are neither the past, present, nor are we the future. We defy what time really means.
So what’s a lovesick vampire to do when he’s fallen in love with a beautiful, mortal human?
I hate love. And I hate being what I am. But not as much as I love Des.
I don’t even get myself sometimes.
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