I’m a little alarmed. When I awaken at dawn, I’ve crossed my hands high up on my chest, and my body is straight as a line anchored by lead, my open mouth exhales an aroma even I will say is fetid, but my canines have retreated although their edges feel keen to me.
I still love the Sun, and I don’t skitter down walls or roam ceilings or the night woods for what, mice, a poor possum, a gaze of fierce raccoons?
I do like blood in my meat, but each morning my jowly face meets my mirror with grim humor.
I wish I had ‘children of the night’. A pack of wolves at my command would be nice about now. “Go. Kill Monsters,” I might say in some facsimile of a Balkan accent, but the poor souls would be hunted down.
Men do not love wolves, not the wild ones anyway.
Eventually some red-eyed fanatic would track me to my bed and pound away, hammer and stake.
That would be that.
I’ve left word to be simple with me. Wrap me in linen, let me open to the air.
I won’t come back, not for you, I swear.
