Modern Child of the Night

[Colette Sartre (DELETED 1259)]

September 20, 2011

ENTRY NUMERO UNO

Something has happened to me, I can’t doubt it any more.

Those were Antoine Roquentin’s first words in “Nausea”. Something has happened to me, I can’t doubt it anymore. Something has happened to me, I can’t doubt it anymore. Those were Roquentin’s first words when Jean-Paul Sartre (who I have always been proud to share a surname with) wrote him into life.

Something has happened to me, I can’t doubt it anymore. As if I can deny that something so massively existentially important – something that feels macrocosmic (but that’s just human (?!) narcissism rearing its ugly head – the Illusion of Self coupled with the Illusion of Time and Universality). I shouldn’t even be alive right now. I should be dead, dead, dead. Dead as a Dodo. Dead as a doornail. Dead as a hooker with a nose full of cocaine on a Tuesday night in a run-down five-dolla-dolla-bill-an-hour-motel.

But I’m not. I’m on my netbook, in my truck, with my music blaring in my ears, and I’m smoking even if it’s not doing anything because it’s a habit. I don’t even feel the ******* nicotine anymore. Lame.

Okay. Let me try this.

I am the vampire Nicolette Sartre.

There we go. Anne Rice-style. Slam-bam-thank you ma’am. As if. As if, as if, as if. God, if only Paulie could see me now. He would say, “You’re being really theatrical again, Colette, sitting there all curled up in your old Isuzu pick-up like a real actress. All you need now is mascara trickling down your cheeks and you’ll be all set for an Oscar. Boo-hoo-hoo. Come here and take a toke.”

God, I miss Mary Jane. I miss my head feeling like a menthol ball and taking my clothes off in front of Junie and Bob while they laugh about Ren & Stimpy. I miss getting blitzed out of my mind! What’s the point of being near-infinite if you can’t have a little psychotropic fun?

It’s raining. I can hear it rain, even though I’m sitting in my truck in the basement of some sucky mall in the middle of sucky Harper Rock. This joint is sucky. This whole place is sucky. The fact that I can hear the rain over Nick Cave saying,

More news from nowhere.
And it’s getting stranger here.
Yeah, it gets stranger every year.

Is sucky.

I hear you, man. Preaching to the choir. Amen. Those angels and stuck-up deities in their cloud nine in the pie-eyed sky are getting louder when they talk and I don’t even have the ******* drugs to make it better. So I turn the music up – put on my headphones and I’m sailing.

Of course, I guess I have to take my headphones off sometimes, too. I need my meds, but they don’t do anything for me, anymore. It’s like that Jefferson Plane song. “The ones that mother gives you don’t do anything at all.” Nothing does anything anymore. I’m pissed off. Somebody turn me off. God. Nick Cave isn’t loud enough. Buzzcocks, please.

BOREDOM. BOREDOM.

It’s not all the time – that’s a small mercy. Like the first time it started, like the first couple of years, it comes in gusts and when it comes it’s like the noise in a mall. A buzz so loud it’s almost silence. Or maybe isolated voices. I don’t know how to explain it. It is what it is. It happens a few dozen times a day. It freaks people out when I start trying to talk to Them – not that They’ve ever answered back. It freaks ME out. Maybe I’m just crazy. Maybe those aren’t the voices of angels and deities and ghosts. I’m probably just crazy. Holy ****, I’m just crazy, aren’t I?


Isn’t it weird how people’s lives can fit into boxes? Just boxes and boxes of stuff. They’re piled up in the back of my truck right now – just boxes of my ****. Music, books, clothes, shoes, cello, keyboard, guitar (though those come in their own boxes. There is always a big enough box anywhere; always the right size). It’s funny how when we die, we end up in boxes, too. Big, black, shiny, human-sized boxes.

That’s where I should be, right now: in a big, black box stuck six feet deep in the earth. But that wasn’t ironic enough for old Ain Soph, or whoever’s ******* fault this is. Maybe this was all me. Maybe I did all that self-destructive **** because I subconsciously knew that it was a siren song for these … beings. Vampires. Whatever. I wonder if werewolves exist, too. I wonder if it’s the same as that Underworld or True Blood ****. I don’t know. It only makes sense to me that they would exist, too. Then again, the existence of one does not necessarily prove the existence of the other. But anyway, I’m getting off topic.

What was the topic? I don’t remember.

**** this. **** that. **** everything. ****. Whatever. Trippy. This whole thing has been trippy as hell. It’s getting hard to concentrate.

My mother was crying at my door while I was packing my **** up. Dad was screaming, as usual. The parentals were freaking out. I’m not well enough to be on my own, they said. That’s what the psychologists said. They wanted to put me in rehab.

Man. If there was ever a moment to play Amy Winehouse.

I wanted to tell them, it’s okay mom and pops. I’m not going to be on my own. There’s this bunch of annoyingly polite and happy vampires that have taken me in as a sort of kid. It’s really trippy, mom and dad. They’re all so pleasant. At least the ones I’ve met. I’m trying to be polite and to smile, but it’s like in “Nausea”.

Everything is making me sick, man. Not that that’s a new thing. It’s been that way for years, of course, but –

Well.

It’s like how in “Nausea”, Roquentin is overwhelmed by the nauseating quality of existence. Everything is suffused with a pervasive, horrible taste. We are condemned to be free.

<<L'enfer, c'est les autres.>>

Hell is other people.

Sometimes I think Sartre was wrong about that. Hell is probably yourself, times infinity. Being with yourself. And, yeah, being with other people.

I miss my friends. I’m going to go hang out with them tonight. **** what Etienne says. I don’t care. They can suck it. I’m a vampire, now. Isn’t that what we wanted all along? To be Lost Boys? To live forever? Well, I’m living the dream.

I miss Jake. He’s like Bobby Ocean. “I don’t mean to impose, but I am the Ocean.” I miss Alex, who always reminded me of Tyler Durden, except less hot. I miss Julie, who makes me want to bash my head in with all her ******* hysterics. I love that chick.

I don’t want to hang out with those polite, proper vampires anymore. It’s weird. I’m used to hanging out with the crème de la crème of Harper’s Rock. That is to say, the tweakers, the druggies, the dealers, the artfags, the motherfucking bad kids – real classy, that crowd. I love it. **** that polite ****. I don’t buy it. Give me self-destruction and desperation. Give me grit. Give me what I want or there’s gonna be a riot.

Whine, whine, whine. Whinge, whinge, whinge.

I HAVE THE ******* RIGHT TO WHINE. I AM A NEWBORN CHILD. BORN INTO THE BLOOD. I AM GOING TO HAVE MY HYSTERICS.

Isn’t that what Greg said? I express myself with all the urgency and self-importance of a child. Good for a performance poet. But a vampire?

Whatever. I’m going to have my fit.

No, I’m not. I’m not going to be hysterical about it, am I. No. That ain’t my style. Snap-dash-crash-bang-thankyoumam. I am a vampire, I am a vampire, I have lost my fangs.

I am a vampire, and you’re my dark angel! – VAST.

****. I need to break up with Patton. That’s okay. I was going to break up with him anyway. I need to break up with him for real, now. I don’t need his coke anymore. I don’t think we can **** right anymore, anyway, seeing as I can’t breathe. I think he’d notice the lack of breathing.

Soon as this rain stops, I’m going to go break up with Patton. I don’t have a tarp and my ****’ll get wet. All my LPs.

… =/

I’m going to go buy myself a cup of coffee and a donut. Etienne says that ingesting anything other than blood will make me throw up. Violently. I wonder how violently. I wonder if that’s true. Must be. He was right about the drugs not doing anything for me. He was right about crying blood (god, isn’t that so ******* dramatic?), and there’s no reason he wouldn’t be right about this.

I just want to try it. I miss coffee. Coffee is my amrita, baby. I am Queen Coffee Bean. I am Lady Kaldi.

I AM THE VAMPIRE NICOLETTE SARTRE. WHATEVA, WHATEVA. I DO WHAT I WANT.

**** OFF. END. AMEN. ENOUGH. RAIN, RAIN GO AWAY. **** THIS. **** YOU. **** EVERYONE. ****. FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK.

Deuces
Xoxo,
C

[Colette Sartre (DELETED 1259)]

ENTRY NUMBER DEUX

September 21, 2011

In times of severe emotional and physical duress, there is an airtight pocket of tranquility and restfulness after a satisfyingly grotesque fit of hysterics where everything is so absolutely stark and beautiful in its clarity. Nothing matters but the Now (and when you think about it, ain't all of life just one endless, cyclical NOW that we can in theory swim through at will?).

Whatever.

After I finished my coffee yesterday and subsequently vomited it up, I threw a superfit in the parking lot. That is to say: I cried, I screamed, I punched cars and got a whole hullabaloo started up (what a party), and it lasted for about half an hour before I finally crumpled into a ball of blood-tears and had to tell everyone I was all right, I was all right, I just got a splinter in my eye. No, I don't need to go to the hospital. No, I don't need a god damn cup of tea. **** you. Get the **** out of my face. Hiss!

In that moment the surreal-ness of my sitch sort of melted away and I realized this whole VAMPIRE thing is for real. Too real. The throwing-my-guts-up-all-over-the-place kind of jostled me out of the whole teen-cool-apathetic thing and I was like

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!

This is some Heironymus Bosch ****, or Dante and Vergil at the gates of Hell. You know, that one painting where Dante is looking all horrified at a very homoerotic scene. (Vampires and homoeroticism. Must be something about "sucking").

But I'm back. I'm back, now. The angels are talking over my head and I am back now, and better than ever. I am a Child of the Night. Nosferatu. Hiss, hiss, I am vicious. Or whatever. I don't know. What the **** is this ****? How am I supposed to act? What is expected of me? "Live, learn," is what Etienne said. "You are going to be very powerful one day." What a load of bull, man. What is the meaning of life (vampiric or otherwise)? 42. 420. Et cetera, et cetera.

Anyway.

Post-trauma, I headed on over to Patton's place and...

Well, it wasn't pretty. There was a lot of throwing **** and accusations on his part ("YOU'RE SLEEPING WITH THAT PUSSY FROM ONTARIO AREN'T YOU?!") and a lot of "dead, emotionless staring" (his words) on mine. After that I went on down to Sarah's place and we went to watch some crusties scream about the government at some really lousy bar. Sarah threw up on their drummer.

I live for this ****.

Everything is neon-bright and I can feel the tiniest pore on my body open up to take it all in. I am seeing colors I never thought possible. I can hear heartbeats, smell the cling of sweat on a drugged up brow. In a crowded room, I can pick up which chick is on her period and which dude just had sex. I can pick out individual voices in a room and hear them talk as if they were right beside me, even though they're like ten feet away. The Up Aboves are getting louder, too. And somehow I think that if I tried to talk to them right now, they'd answer back.

Everything is so vivid. Everything is so real. Everything is surreal. Vampirism is like one big, extended acid trip. It's terrible and it's horrifying and I feel like something out of the Twilight Zone or the X-Files, but at the same time... At the same time, it's like... it's like there's a huge part of me that's enjoying this. That thinks this is great. And maybe it is. I don't know. I've been drinking from people. I've been charming the pants off of them. I've been living it up. I am loving it. Then again, I am not. I am horrified of it. I don't know!

Like I said, I'm trying to figure this **** out.

It has been approximately two days, three hours, and four minutes since I was, as Anne Rice so quaintly puts it, "Born into The Blood" - or something like that. I don't remember anymore. I haven't read the Vampire Chronicles in a while. I should probably pick Interview up and give it a once-over. That could maybe help me sort things out. (Probably not.)

I've been more or less living in my Isuzu. I put a tarp over my **** so that it wouldn't get wet/spotted and stolen, but I wish that I had some sort of storage space for it. Etienne's place is all crowded (by a couple of really um, perky, chicks that I haven't met properly yet, but they freak me the **** out). I don't want to impose.

The **** am I talking about, though? Ain't he the dude that fucked me up in the first place? Ain't he my Magnus? Doesn't that qualify me to put my **** all up in his grill?

Fo shizzle. Case closed. I'm putting my **** in his "haven".


I have been thinking about St. Alphonsus' treatise on Baptism. According to him there are three types. Fluminis (water), Flaminis (wind), and of Blood. And of course I'm obsessing on the "blood" part.

"Baptism of blood is the shedding of one’s blood, i.e. death, suffered for the Faith or for some other Christian virtue. Now this baptism is comparable to true Baptism because, like true Baptism, it remits both guilt and punishment as it were ex opere operato. I say as it were because martyrdom does not act by as strict a causality [“non ita stricte”] as the sacraments, but by a certain privilege on account of its resemblance to the passion of Christ." (Why does the Catholic faith lend itself so perfectly to metaphors on vampirism? "The blood is the life!" etc, etc.)

So I'm thinking -- martyrdom. Sure. But I'm a pagan nymph dancing with Cernunnos under the pale moonlight, whispering spells into the heady vapor of dawn. Or something. I am the (not so) virgin sacrifice on the altar of a deity with a God Complex. All this vampirism and nigh-immortality stuff is that - playing God. And we are expecting ourselves to be free of guilt - for it all to be ex opere operato. There has to be a catch somewhere.

I guess I will cross that bridge when I get there. Right now, I'm going to keep driving around Harper Rock, try and meet other Draculas and Lestats and Nosferatus and Lord Ruthvens out there. Hope so, hope so.

Foreshadowing?!

[Colette Sartre (DELETED 1259)]

A Happy Death
by Nicolette Sartre

Something tells me that if I were to open up
a vein, Hieronymus Bosch would come dancing out
to the tune of the Danse Macabre (Saint-Saens
protect me)
as a triptych of one-eyed bee-and-toad liike
monsters -- marching with Dali's elephants ala
Un Chien Andalou -- cutting across my eye
like the moon and a knife while Duchamp screams
<<à chacun ses goûts!>>
Comme il faut.
At least that is what Kuthumi slurs --
so high up in the hazy milk of his opium den
in heaven.

In heaven, pie-eyed deities rub dicks about metaphysics
and their angels are too blown to do
anything but burst into hallelujahs or talk
about how Luce's punk rock revolution could have gone
so
much
better.
In heaven, they don't have Time (because
that old neanderthal concept is alien)
to look down their Jesus-noses at Us -
playing God on the streets of Infinity, sprawled
like Piss Angels in the gutter with our
mouths open for the blood of stars.

I am Carmilla waking up in the thin wine of late afternoon.
I am whirling dust. I am The Big Empty.
I am the smile on Buddha's face as he smokes
a mustard seed through the ear of a lotus.

Da, quaesumus Dominus,
ut in hora mortis nostrae Sacramentis refecti et culpis omnibus expiati,
in sinum misericordiae tuae laeti suscipi mereamur.
Per Christum Dominum nostrum.

Amen.

[Colette Sartre (DELETED 1259)]

September 24

Saw a vampire die tonight.

Twisted. Very twisted.

[Colette Sartre (DELETED 1259)]

Exactly one month post-mortem.

The afterlife is a waiting room. No wonder The Up Aboves are so chatty.