At some point in this rancid joke I call life I will be on my own. By this, of course I mean my parents will pass on to that blissful ethereal world of death that I may never know the joy of retiring to. Since I am a creature of extreme discomfort, I take absolutely no solace in the fantasies of my unchained life. Nobody to restrict me, nobody to keep me from the petty delights I barely enjoy now, nobody to collect my welfare check that will eventually disappear like all of my hopes and dreams. I will eventually become the phantom that is essentially every vampire in every vampire story ever told. Minus everything appealing, of course.
When you look like a child forever, it’s not like you can just skip from town to town every year, keeping the facade fresh where nobody notices your immortal routine. I can’t get a job. I can’t get an apartment. I can’t even panhandle. Someone would take me to the police where they would assume I’m lost or a runaway or something. I pretty much have to plan on becoming a master thief where I slip my fat rolls in and out of houses, stealing groceries, living out of abandoned buildings or caves, and generally having a really bad time. While this might seem like a dream come true to the adolescent, undeveloped mind, it is a horrific thought to the well aged, tired, obese, depressed, and unmotivated mind of the dumpy vampire deadlocked in a lose / lose body for all of time’s mighty expanse.
I have only a small cluster of things that anchor me to sanity. If I lose World of Warcraft or cable TV then I might as well buckle down and get used to biting people and sucking that nasty, thick, salty blood out of their thrashing bodies. If I can overpower them with my titanic 13 year old muscles, that is.
It is inevitable though. I’ve known this for some time. Several years ago I ventured out into the world after my parents went to sleep at their elderly bed time of 8:30 PM, which by the way is what they try to enforce upon me as well. I tried to stay out all night just to see what it would be like to be homeless, directionless, and alone in the big city. After about an hour I got too cold to function and got on the subway, where I rode around aimlessly while talking to a scary homeless man. He spoke of horrors that most common people never really know about in their lives. Were you aware that a chicken leg is considered more valuable than money to a lot of homeless people? Apparently a chicken leg is guaranteed food, where money is not guaranteed to get you anything to eat. Most restaurants in a major city will not serve you if you smell like an unflushed toilet, look like a pile of stained rags, and your leathery, sun whipped skin turns more stomachs than heads. Believe it or not, not every homeless person is a drug addict and many of them are really out there looking for something to eat. In those cases, a chicken leg could get you shanked. It wasn’t long before his wily tales of the streets convinced me that the way of the road is no way for me. I returned to my neighborhood after about an hour of his ramblings. I spent the next couple hours in a 24 hour diner sipping hot chocolate, telling the waitress that I lived right next door and my mom said it was OK so long as I’m back before 3 AM. I didn’t make it that long. I got home just after 1 AM. It was a crushing defeat.
I think worse than all would be the boredom. Since I enjoy nothing about nature, the one thing I would be surrounded by, the appeal of a lumberjack lifestyle, living off the land, and coexisting with nature is about as close to zero as it can get. I went fishing once with my dad. Well, actually, he went fishing with some co-workers and brought me along so I could sit in the car and guard the tools he had in the back while they fished. Eventually he let me try fishing, which involved spearing a living, slime covered worm onto a thin hook. I sat there for a while before caving in and returning to the vastly more interesting tool collection in the back of the car. I was only slightly upset about the absolute wealth of aquatic creatures captured by every other person on the trip, while my victory remained desolate and non existent. Aside this, the extent of my backwoods survival skills was the one time I pitched a tent in my back yard. I had a pet rabbit that I routinely neglected and as a result it had a necrotic skin infection that cause small patches of his face to rot and fall off. I got scared and returned to my room before the moon was at the zenith of the sky.
Unless I happen to find a way to maintain a constant internet connection on the computer that I won’t be able to buy, in the house I can’t afford with the income I don’t have, then my future is looking devilishly boring. I will have to find some way of making fun out of hiding in the woods.