Fat Man Climbs Fence

I am obsessed by vampires.

This obsession isn't really like me. I was never a part of the dark and Gothic scene. For Christ's sake, I wore pink to the 9:30 Club (the original site) in the heyday of punk's influence on the venue. A cutting-edge friend had brought me along to see an upcoming LA band called The Red Hot Chilli Peppers. That night the lead singer would announce that he had discovered his first haemorrhoid; generous with his discovery, he'd pull down his trousers, and spread his butt cheeks for the audience. I would stand slack-jawed in my pink sweater, wishing I'd had a better sense of what to where when.

How uncool.

I never got into Anne Rice's novels. On the contrary, I snootily dismissed them as rubbish (along the same lines as Dan Brown's literary masterpieces).

I never wore all black (including eye-liner) and listened exclusively to heavy metal or smoked clove cigarettes while drinking coffee in underground establishments.

I am, and have been since adolescence, predominantly and perhaps sadly, mainstream.

My current obsession has, therefore, caught me unaware.

When I'm flossing my teeth, I wonder to myself: do vampires floss? Do they go to the dentist? Would there be special vampire dentists or would a regular dentist do?

I go to the loo and I wonder: do vampires shit?

I doubt it.

Do vampires pee? If they do pee, is their urine red-stained by all the blood they consume?

I sit in the uncommonly, glorious October sunshine on a bench on a platform along a train line. I am not thinking about the meetings I have just concluded or the resulting actions; nor am I thinking of the afternoon or tomorrow or what might come.

I'm thinking about the vampires and the television show that has me addicted.

A man - a businessman - joins me on my bench. I move my bag to make more room. He acknowledges my gesture. "Have to sit in the sun whilst we have it." he says. I smile and nod in agreement, but inside my head I'm thinking, "You're obviously no vampire; seeking out the sun like you do."

I chastise myself for being so single-minded. I shake my head in dismay at the thought of my train of thought during my earlier business meetings in which I assessed each participant on their vampire-ness. "None of them would have made good vampires" was my conclusion.

I can't account for my obsession; at least not without some effort.

I have finished all episodes and will have to wait until June 2010 to see more. I hope my fixation subsides.