The Eternal Conflict

Vampires originated in Greek mythology, there was a man named Ambrogio who fell in love with a woman named Selena. Long story short, Ambrogio goes to the Oracle to see Apollo, the sun god and asked him to get the woman to marry him. Apollo also wanted to marry Selena, so he made Ambrogio’s skin burn when it came into contact with the sun. Ambrogio then turned to Hades and Artemis and stole Artemis’s silver bow to complete a deal made with Hades, so she made silver burn his skin as well. Then she later felt pity for him and allowed him to possess immortality, super strength, and fangs. This is the basis for most vampire movies, stories, and books.

One such vampire series; Twilight by Stephanie Myers, encapsulates Bella Swan and Edward Cullen, two polar opposites who try to survive in both their own separate worlds and the world they create together. Bella Swan has just recently moved to Washington State as an awkward teenager who can’t fit in. All of this changes when she meets Edward Cullen, the mysterious vampire who takes a special liking to Bella. He likes her so much that he eventually turns her into a vampire.

A different take on vampirism is in the solo book The Coldest Girl in Coldtown by Holly Black, where a young teenager Tana, lives in a time when around ten to twelve years prior there was a huge vampire epidemic. Since then the country and the world has learned how to deal with this problem. In present-day Tana goes to a house party to have fun, all is going well until she wakes up the next morning with a hangover and dead bodies everywhere. She tries to collect herself as quickly as possible, as the sleeping vampires will soon eat again when she meets Gavriel, a vampire who will be her light out of this never-ending tunnel.

As with the story of Ambrogio and Selena, there are distinct qualities of vampires and their existence. The most known, how a vampire will simply bite a mortal human, and then that person will transform into a vampire themselves. In Twilight, Bella slowly recuperates the feelings towards Edward and they fall in love. Naturally, as things go, Bella ends up getting pregnant–there’s only one problem though, vampires and humans should never be able to conceive a child, let alone have the mother survive the birth. As Bella is in labor the baby is growing too powerful for Bella. In a last-ditch effort to save Bella, Edward–who comes from a family of vampires who don’t drink blood–drinks her blood, therefore, turning her into a vampire and making her immortal. Twilight follows the typical backstory of vampires.

Tana has been experiencing vampires ever since she was five when her mom came home one night after a party and didn’t look well. As soon as the outbreaks started getting really bad, and were causing lots of fear, schools began teaching vampire prevention. Tana knew all about how the Cold went. When someone was bitten by a vampire, the vampire’s infected blood started coursing through the mortal’s blood, making the human go Cold. Not like a cold when you sneezed and had a sore throat, but an infection of your blood–a disease. The only cure for this disease was you couldn’t consume human blood for eighty-eight days. If you consumed human blood, then the infection would take hold of your body, and you would die, and then come back to life again, born anew. The difference between Twilight and The Coldest Girl in Coldtown is that in Twilight it follows the atypical tale of vampirism. While in The Coldest Girl in Coldtown, the author gives an explanation of how to turn into a vampire and how to avoid being turned into a vampire. Holly Black gives a sense of reasoning and almost a false sense of science behind the madness that is vampires.

Love is common in both humans and vampires, one specific aspect that is also common is a love triangle. In a love triangle, there are three people, two of whom are fighting over the third person. In Twilight, Bella first meets Edward and begins her journey on a road towards love, and along the way, she meets Jacob Black the shape-shifting werewolf. As she spends time with both Edward and Jacob, her feelings for both of them collide. She feels as if she has a strong connection with Edward, especially how he always looks at her in a special way. While she spends a good deal of time with Edward, she also starts to trickle off and spend time with Jacob, where she begins to doubt which one she likes the most. Jacob gives her signs that he likes her, but she chooses to ignore his advances and goes with her gut–Edward.

After collecting herself from her terrifying surroundings, Tana looks around the house and finds her ex-boyfriend Aidan tied to a bed unconscious. Then she hears rattling and notices the vampire–Gavriel–secured to a bed by chains. After a quick think through, she decides to free both, even though, she wanted to leave Aidan there to die. As they escape the house and begin their journey towards a Coldtown, Tana gets stuck with feelings from the past towards Aidan, and new blossoming feelings with Gavriel. As they are trying to get to their safe haven, Aidan tries to rekindle old feelings to no avail, while Tana is entranced by the new boy on the block. While Bella has two boys who constantly want her attention, Tana chooses to ignore Aidan, in order to focus on the task at hand. In the end, Bella chooses the one whom she’s known longest and has the most connection with. Tana chooses to save her life and those around her versus focusing on which boy she should engage with. Both experienced young love, and in two separate ways, they dealt with the consequences.

Two separate books, one main theme, six totally different characters. Both books tackled a tale as old as time itself–especially when you can live forever. Twilight took on the more traditional theme of vampires and didn’t add any special twists. Unlike Twilight, The Coldest Girl in Coldtown took the average tale of vampires and flipped it on its head. By adding that becoming a vampire can be a disease and not merely just an act that can be completed in a meager couple of minutes, it added a layer of complexity to a basic storyline. Both were about vampires and the consequences of following one blindly, but The Coldest Girl in Coldtown showed aspects of a more developed theme of vampires and went past the line of no return in not only the fictional realm, but the vampire realm.

Into the Shadows

        “Come on Zoticus we have to hurry”,  I say as we rush over to the site. I know we have to get there quickly, so I hop in the other world–the shadows, and hang on to Zoticus to see the girl. Most people don’t know about my special powers, except those that have been hurt. I don’t mean fall off your bike hurt. I mean–abuse, loved ones dying, bullying, divorce, or you yourself are dying. I’m the one who helps those people start over. I’m kind of like their guardian angel, more like their guardian shadow. We rush over to her from the shadow world. Once there, I jump into the real world and slowly approach her.

        “Hi, are you okay?” I ask

        “Who are you?” she turns her head inquisitively

        “I’m…..I’m–Rose”

        “Where’d you just come from?”

        “It’s hard to explain, who hurt you?”

        “My, my fiancé”, she replied back.

        “Why?”

        “Becau–”, but she was interrupted by a tall dark figure looming over us.

        “Don’t say another word Isabelle. Unless you want to get hurt again, and your friend too”, said the tall man who I assumed was her fiancé.

        He stepped forward fist raised in the direction of Isabelle. I couldn’t allow this to happen. It’s not okay, I need to fix this, someway somehow. I decided that punching him wasn’t going to do much, so I took her and ran as far and as fast as I could. As we were running I saw Zoticus and I pulled her and I on top of him as we dove into the shadows.

        “You’ll be alright now”, I said.

        “Wh.Where are we? How did we get here? Is this a dragon?,” asked Isabelle.

        “Funny most people ask about the dragon first.”

        “Most? What do you mean most? There’ve been others? Where are you taking me?”

        “Somewhere where you’ll be safe”

For a while, they flew along in silence. Then they arrived at the Cove.

        “Now just be careful when stepping off the dragon and I’ll get you situated”

        Isabelle stepped off the dragon very shakily. Rose led her down into the Cove. As they were walking in other protectors, stopped and noticed the new rundown soul. And Isabelle saw other people like her; a kid who looked to be around 6 or 7 who looked badly beaten up, a young boy with scars on his wrists, and a young couple.

As Rose was walking in, she sees others whispering and pointing at her.

        “I see you brought another one in. Is he allowing you to protect again? Already?” said Elliot.

       “What does that me–”, but Isabelle was interrupted.

        “Oh let it go, Elliot. That was years ago”.

        “Or are you doing this without his permission?”, asked Elliot.

        “That’s enough. Everyone back to what you were doing. NOW! That includes you, Elliot.”

        Everyone immediately went back to what they were doing as soon as they realized whose words those belonged to – the Leader of the Cove.

        “Sorry Marcus”, he said as he cowered away in fear.

        “Hello, Rose. Sorry about that. I’m Marcus, I didn’t get your name?”, he held out his hand to Isabelle for a shake.

        “Oh, uhhhh uhhh uhhh, it…it…it…it.. it’s–Isabelle”, she stammered.

        “Well greetings Isabelle, and welcome to the Cove, I’m glad you’re here”

        “Th..th..th–thanks” she swallowed.

        “I see you’re nervous. Well, there’s no reason to be. I’ll have Rose here show you around and get you situated. And then I’ll show you what the Cove’s all about. Sound good?”

        “Yeah”

        “Alright this way”, said Rose.

        As they walked further away from all the people, Isabelle built up the courage to ask Rose a question that’s been pestering her.

        “Who was that?”

        “Who? The disgusting blob of garbage? Or the tall man?”

        Isabelle looked astonished as soon as Rose spoke.

        “The blob is Elliot, and he’s not worth anyone’s time. And the tall man is Marcus and he’s the leader of this whole operation”.

        “So I’m guessing that you don’t like Elliot? Right?”

        “Right”

        “Any reason why?”

        “He just can’t let some things go”, I say remembering the terrible events of that day.

        “Come on, tell me more”, she prods.

        “No. It’s nothing. It’s a long story, and you just won’t understand.”

        “I’ll understand, I’ve been in drama before”

        “Your fight with your boyfriend at Prom doesn’t count. This isn’t like one of your human problems. It’s a lot more complex and includes subject matter way out of your brain capacity”

        “Alright fine”

        “I’m sorry let’s just get on with the tour”.

        They walked the whole way in silence until they reached the corridor for newcomers.

        “Alright, I’ll take it from here”, spoke Marcus.

        “No no no. I have it under control”

        “Come on Rose, just go,” Marcus walks up to her and whispers to her, so that only she can hear it. “We don’t want another incident like last time, do we? That caused a lot of problems, we’ve healed since then. We don’t need another Charlotte”.

        “Marc, I’ve got it”

        “Okay. But if the same thing happens like last time, you’re done. For good”, he says as he walks away.                  End of Part 1.

• Any person who reads this, you are welcome to leave a comment or advice.

 

 

Poetic Life

            Some would say that writing a poem is similar to life. Just like I have essential tools to help me get through life, for poetry those items are pen and paper, I try to keep those two items with me at all times. Just in case as I’m roaming the cracker aisle at Kroger, and I get inspiration for a poem, I have the ability to write it down. Inspiration can happen anywhere and anytime. Some of my best poems have occurred at random times in the day. For instance, I’ll be sitting and relaxing while watching some television, and then an idea starts forming in my head, growing like wildfire, and the only way to put it out, is to write down the series of words and phrases until they grow into something bigger and better than I could ever have imagined.

There are days when all I am doing is writing, continuous writing. The creative juices flowing–more like flooding–and all I continue to do is write to my heart’s content. Then there are days when it’s like the Sahara Desert, dry as it could ever be, it’s as if there was a drought, and not a drop of creativity falls from the sky. It is on those days that I experience what every writer before me, and most definitely after me, experiences–writer’s block. The unmistakable feeling of not knowing how to start, or even how to go on. On those days I send in an emergency group to help repair the damage. First, I’ll go over old poems of mine, and try to generate a similar atmosphere and state of mind. Then, if that doesn’t work, I’ll listen to some music that gets the gears in motion. Finally, if all of that doesn’t work, then I’ll step away from it for awhile, and freshen up my mind. Depending on how long that takes, it could be minutes, hours, or even days (usually only one to three), then I’ll get back into the swing of things, and finish off the poem.

Writing a poem is just like going to college: I need to be prepared at all times, to take notes, and to continue learning even outside of the classroom. Some days I’ll be able to study for hours and hours on end. But then other days I’ll be all studied out, and you’ll have to take a brief break from the task at hand. College certainly won’t be easy, but I think with the ability to write about anything and anywhere, makes me a great student. Someone like me who finds inspiration in the most unlikely of places, such as the cracker aisle, makes me a very observant and introspective person, who likes to think and question. Just like writing a poem, I need to have focus and perseverance to get through the whole piece.

Me, Myself, and I

If I could be who I truly wanted to be

It would be someone who was more focused

Someone who speaks without hesitation

Someone who would not care about others’ opinions

Someone who could go for anything without ever holding back.

Life

Everyone has different opinions about everything, different views, and different ways of going through life.

In this life, I want to gain the feeling of success,

of feeling as if I accomplished something I could never dream of

the feeling of complete and udder satisfaction

That is what I want from life.

Who am I?

Well for starters I’m a tad quiet on occasion, but I can be loud and vociferous if I want to be

I’m sarcastic and indecisive, what a great combo I’ve been told (just kidding, no one would ever say or believe that statement)

I am a person, who is not very good at making decisions, including how to end this poem.

 

 

                                                                          

 

Thanks for joining me!

Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton