dispatch4

Gradually, my home took shape. On that first night, the heavy drapes and bolts on the doors, made my sanctuary secure for the following days sleep. I was pleased with my initial purchases and strangely enough, looked forward to spending some time working on the desk and table. Another benefit of my kind.. I could work for hours, stripping the layers of paint from the beautiful wood hidden beneath, without getting tired. Oh, I could have purchased new things; I had enough funds for that, but as my existance was one of solitude, small things like this would pass some of the nights, and leave me with a sense of accomplishment. How very childish this would seem to those with centuries of immortality, yet I had not become jaded with mortal memories and still got pleasure from something so simple.

Within a few nights, my new home was quite presentable. In a fit of morbid humor, I covered the bedroom walls with blood red fabric and added a red velvet chaise. Perhaps I should go into business as interior decorator to the night culture. Night pressed the glass behind the curtains, but not a glimmer found its way through the smallest crack. From the outside, nobody would be aware of occupancy, except for the fact that I planned on cleaning up the garden and putting in a small waterfall.

During these renovations, I hadn't deprived myself of sustenance. It was folly to attempt to go without the blood for long, and any way, why should I? There was enough mortal flotsam floating around the city to draw me with its tantalizing fragrance, and I found the smell of fear to be most invigorating. Deep within me, an animal strove for release; a savage and uncivilized part of me that I did not, as yet, understand. I feared the future while I was running from the past.

Once my nights were less occupied, I took to roaming the city and its outskirts. Often lost deep in thought, I would find myself in the midst of leaning tombstones, with the moonlight casting an arctic illusion over the boneyard. The grass was eerily silver as snow at night and gravestones were tilted like pressure ridges of ice in a fractured wasteland. Mist hung heavily over the scene.

This was often my place for thought; for soul searching, if I still possessed such a thing as a soul. I would ponder the past and wonder about the future. There was always a small spark of hope that I would not always be solitary. If we don't allow ourselves to hope, we have no purpose. Without purpose, without meaning, what I consider *life* is darkness. If there is no light within, it is like murder of the soul. I wanted to love again and to be loved in return. Love is strength, not weakness. It takes courage to love,

because love's risk is so great. I wondered if I still had the courage, or if my emotional walls were too solid to ever be breached. There were times when the teeth of sorrow bit deeply; far deeper than any fangs.

And so the time passed. I worked on completing my haven. The second room to be done was my den, where the centre-piece was the restored rolltop desk. In this room also was my only concession to the modern world; a computer, on which I could put my errant thoughts and observations. Many nights, the glow of the monitor was the only light in the house, although I admit to a weakness for candles. As my vision is far sharper than that of a mortal, the candle light is quite sufficient and also adds an ambiance that matches my mood.

I ventured out into the crowded city streets in order to slake my thirst and lose myself briefly in the sweet delirium of the blood. Once that was satisfied, I spent most nights on the outskirts of the inhabited parts. In places where traffic noises were so muffled they sounded like the grunts, groans and low menacing growls of foraging animals, displaced predators prowling the urban mists, I found a medicine for melancholy; a preventative for madness. Some nights were gentle. soft as a woman come to dance, yet carrying a steely blade of cold in black-silk skirts. Other times I reveled in the power of the storm, when thunder crushed the sky and lightning tore it. The wind would shear green tresses from the trees; boughs would bend and break, and I would stand there, my face lifted to the sky, rain washing my face clean of its sins, at least temporarily. Afterwards, when the storm has passed, the breeze would turn playful, kicking up the sodden leaves at my feet. The mummified moon would unwind itself from its rags of embalming clouds, its pocked face glowering in full brightness, sifting through the branches of the great trees. Such nights as this, I would wonder at the infinite complexities of a world so full of mystery.

On my return to my snug home, I would spend the rest of the night hours either entering my thoughts and observations in the computer, or, far preferable to me, lost deep into another world of a book. As the dawn approached, I would retire to my blood red bedroom, where I would slip into the undulating currents of sleep, drifting away on velvet tides.