Vampirony

I blink awake and lift my head.  I’m sitting in the Scout, the engine turned off, on the shoulder of the road.  The farms and plains of late harvest spread out around me.  There’s a twinge of manure in the air.  I can’t remember why I’m here.  Something about picking up a pot roast for dinner.

I look down and the white leather seat which David had spent eight months hunting down and being able to afford is covered in red as well as the crotch of my khaki crop pants.  Blood has dripped over the lip of the seat and has pooled around my Merrell slides.  I glance to my right.  For some reason, my white socks are sitting in a pile on the seat next to me.  Strange.  I gaze down again, hands smoothing over my newly rounded belly.

David will be so upset about his seats.  Or is it something else?

I start to feel the itchy skin again.  My cell phone is sitting in the holder between the seats.  I pick it up and dial home. 

“Hel-LOOO, hon.  What did you forget?”

He sounds happy to hear from me.  He always does.

“Hon?”

“I messed up your seats.” 

“Soph, you sound funny.  Where are you?”

“I’m sorry but I don’t think the red will come out.”  Nonsense, really.  A wave of nausea hits me as I faintly hear David yelling into the phone.  It’s a funny thing, fainting.  The edges of your world start to get all fuzzy and then this perfect circle starts to eat at your existence until there’s nothing but black.

I come to again and I’ve dropped the phone on the floor.  It’s ringing.  I pick it up and answer.

“Ma’am, this is Ohio State Patrol.  Have you been in an accident?”

“Uh-huh,” I say, removing my belt.   I set the phone down to help me.  I take the keys out of the ignition and set them in the seat next to my socks and then open the door and slide out of the Scout.  It’s a beautiful fall day, although it’s a little cold.  My legs are freezing.

I’ve lost the baby.  And even worse than that, I feel this strange mingling of fear, disappointment, and underneath it all, in my darkest heart of hearts, I feel relief.   Having felt so empty for so long, it felt sacrilegious of me to bring another soul into this world.  I never breathed a word of my doubts to David.  But lately, all I’ve felt is this strong desire, this wish to be anywhere but here.

I walk down the road, letting the vastness of fields shroud me.  Why couldn’t I just be happy, contented with this life?  Why did nothing I say or do seem to fit?  No one deserves this.  Especially not David.  Nor my little princess.  They never asked to be connected to me, this heartless, thoughtless, meaningless hole in the world.

My legs have frozen up and I slump to the ground, landing in the ditch.  Bad timing to have taken a deserted back road to head to the store.  Maybe someone will come by eventually.  My skin feels itchy, the nausea is still here, and in my heart, there’s just nothing but stillness.

Maybe it’s a fitting end for a woman who doesn’t care for anyone, not even herself.  Who doesn’t seem fit to inhabit the very skin that she’s in.  Fitting to die alone in a ditch somewhere, covered in blood.  Well, at least that would be going somewhere new, dying. 

After all, anywhere but here.

This entry was posted on October 16, 2009 at 7:16 pm and is filed under Fiction, Vampirony with tags creative writing, Fiction, vampires, Vampirony. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.