vampirevodka-blog

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you’re the one who said that you didn’t want things to change and thats why you wanted to revert back to the way we were. if that’s the case then why are you acting differently and shutting me out? something integral about our dynamics changed and im tired

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Day One: Location

Nico Di Angelo, Tartarus. 

           Everything is black. The only light to stretch for miles—the only way Nico is able to see anything at all—is the sickly green flames of the Underworld, up in the distance.

 It’s okay. I’m only going to pass through, find the entrance to the Doors of Death, and leave. Nothing harder than the tasks Hades’ assigned me before. Right? 

There is an ear-splitting screech off to his left and, cautious to run into as little monsters as possible in his time in Tartarus, he makes his way to the mountains on the right.

 The air is sulfuric, each breath painful, but at least Nico had Alecto’s advice and was able to fall to Hell prepared. His bag was stored with supplies she’d warned him he would need: thick-soled shoes (the ground consisted entirely of crushed glass shards, some the length of Nico’s forearm), surgical masks to make breathing easier (which, honestly, was not working at all for the son of Hades), and plenty of McDonalds. He also had one of those refillable beverage vials he’d snagged from camp before his descent, but he was concerned what would occur should its magic fail to work in the Underworld. Yes, he knew drinking from the Phlegethon was inevitable, but he was hoping to have to do so as sparingly as possible. Fire did not seem like an enjoyable thing to ingest. But damn, is it scorching. Nico wiped his forehead with the back of his hand, briefly debating whether he should lose the jacket or not. It had been a gift—maybe he could just find room for it in his bag?

 He needed to move. He was spending too long in one place, and in the land of monsters—many of which Nico had killed himself—that was bound to be problematic. His mouth was so dry, though.

That settled it. He removed his backpack quickly, setting it on a particularly large shard of glass so as to avoid it ripping—that would truly be catastrophic—and slid off his jacket. One glance at his bag made it obvious: there was no way the thick jacket would fit, and he couldn’t afford to leave anything behind. He sighed and glanced around nervously, a hand on his sword, before he wrapped the jacket around his waist, ensuring it did nothing to hinder him from grabbing the hilt of his weapon. He tied his hair up, too; as an Italian, his hair was already thick enough without the added heat it absorbed, being such a dark shade of brown.

He trekked on, hoping to find the river and use it as a guide to the Doors. At the top of the mountain ridge, he looked over the expanse of desolate wreckage and was able to make out the glow of the Phlegethon a ways ahead. He’s barely been down here for seven hours and he’s already desperate to leave: tired, sweaty, and entirely on-edge of an ambush. He begins the hike down the mountain side, careful not to fall into the sharp glass and always keeping an eye on his surroundings. The expanse of emptiness, almost like a desert at night: that’s what’s making him most anxious. To monsters, whose eyes are much better adjusted to such climates, he’s right out in the open for anyone’s taking. What’s worse: the shadows here don’t work the same as the ones in the world above: they are more sinister and he has no control over them at all.

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It’s hard, simply giving yourself like that to someone. You leave them with power over you and then you’re worried at every turn that they’ll turn and you’ll be left humiliated, stranded, and even more desperate than you’d been before them. And you get more reckless, which in turn leads to greater disaster.

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Automat (1927), Edward Hopper.

     The bells strewn over the door chime, announcing my arrival to the boy manning the counter. He’s not Elia—who would normally be here on a Tuesday afternoon, but he seems kind enough. I smile, politely, and he asks if there’s any way he could be of assistance.

“Yes, please, there’s a book I’ve been reading here, it’s called We All Looked Up? Elia leaves it behind the counter for me for whenever I can seal myself away for a little.” He ducks down under the countertop and I take the chance to tap out a few buttons on my phone screen—Do not Disturb. I rarely get the opportunity to visit this place anymore: it’s always something or other with work, or my parents, or university that grabs me by the arm and yanks me back every time I even think of escaping. Especially with Anthony’s kid on the way, and what with how busy my schedule has been up until now due to exam season…

“Ah, here it is. By ‘Tommy Wallach,’” he reads off the cover, his tongue cluck-ing on the ‘ch’ at the end rather than the smooth sh I’m familiar with my mother using, as well as using myself. He holds the book out to me, half-grinning, dimples etched into his cheeks. “Is it any good?”

“It’s…” I pause, considering, because how do you explain to an individual you’ve only just met that you’re reading a story that explores how human behavior may make people respond to an end of the world catastrophe? “It’s a bit sad, but it’s interesting.”

“Hm.” He glances down at a phone—presumably his own—that’s chimed from where it rests on the counter. His eyes flick back up to me, the hazel poorly concealing his sudden loss of interest, and he asks if I would like to order anything.

Tea. I ask for a cup of chamomile with honey, thank him, and find my way to the table I always sit at whenever I come here. The shop itself—Papercup, a place the size of a walk-in closet with books, records, newspapers, magazines lining the walls up to the ceilings—is situated right next to a little café that a friend and I used to frequent. We aren’t friends anymore, and I loved the aura Home Sweet Home had encompassed itself in: the couches and décor making even the most out-of-place individual feel genuinely at home. It hurt too much to return by myself, though—we had had memories in the little atrium with the fairy lights, the bathroom with the submarine-esque wallpaper and rounded mirrors. Once I thought I’d try and go back myself—they have the best sweet potatoes fries I have ever tasted—and found myself in a hurry to leave before any tears actually fell. I’d aimlessly stumbled around the streets of Mar Mikhael in just the right direction, because I found myself standing in front of a small little nook with a cherry-wood bench outside and glass windows for the exterior wall. Granted, it had been busier that day: jam-packed because of the rain, there had barely been enough room for me to stand, let alone do any reading. I didn’t mind, though; I had a fresh-baked scone that melted in my mouth and was surrounded by quiet conversations, stories shared over warm cups of coffee and fat slices of pound cake, and I fell absolutely in love. This place always felt magical, like one of the few gems left that the outside world hadn’t managed to get their slimy, greedy hands on yet, and the atmosphere was so heart achingly raw that I found myself fitting right in amongst the dusty records seamlessly. I settle back into my seat, relishing the faint scent of worn books and aged paper mingled with the bitter aroma of coffee, and felt content.

           There was a strict policy against smoking indoors, I soon discovered after I’d begun to frequent the coffee shop. Of the four tables that fit in the café, three were occupied: an old woman with a cat, a couple of girls at the seating right beside the window. Papercup had smelled like gingerbread—this had been right before Christmas, when everyone was out anxiously buying gifts and trampling over each other in department stores—and I’d opted for peppermint tea to fit the atmosphere. Elia—who had taken a liking to me ever since I’d asked if they had any books by Viriginia Woolf at hand—was seated across from me, a paintbrush shoved through her hair, precariously balancing her massive curls into a bun atop her head. There’d been the snick of a lighter and a spark of light off to the left; Elia was up like a flash and politely informing the elderly woman of how much trouble she’d get into if she allowed her to carry on inside, but that the woman would be more than welcome to finish her cigarette outside. The woman apologized and Elia helped her relocate outside, her fair falling out of place slightly after the effort of opening the fold-up table they keep in the back. She’d come back to the table, eyeballing the box of Marlboros that had magically appeared on the table while she’d been away (read: that I’d rapidly searched my bag to fish out, just because she was funny to annoy like that), and she locked me inside after closing hours while she’d chain-smoked the few left, making face through the window.

Because of this, I knew better than to even make such possessions visible—the staff was far too much like a family, and family members force you to share everything with them, even if you don’t want to. I’d already smoked before I turned onto this street. I start when my tea is placed before me, and the boy laughs, apologizing and returning to where he’d been perched behind the counter. It’s only the two of us in the place, but it’s not awkward at all: there’s a soft song on the speaker overhead that I can faintly recognize as one of the new ones by Harry Styles, and there’s the soft whirring and dripping coming from the coffee machines. It’s serene, and I set the book on the table, away from me a bit, and pull out my watercolors and sketch pad.

There are already thousands of sketches of this exact café, from this exact location, scattered throughout the pages. Some in colored pencil, one in acrylics—one of them, though. One of them is of a different side of Papercup, one late at night after closing hours where the overhead lights have been shut off and the coffee pots long since emptied and the entirety of the place blanketed in silence, the streetlights in the window making the rickety wooden ladder perched up against the bookshelf-wall look copper.

Sometimes I wish that I did work here, instead. That I accepted the job when Elia’s boss—Raul—had offered. Sure, the pay is nowhere near what I make at Roadster’s, and tips are basically a foreign concept, but at least the shifts aren’t anxiety-inducing and my co-workers would offer me a lousy greeting at the start of a shift. I bring my cup to my lips, breathing over it gently to cool the tea before taking a sip. I set down the mug and pick up my pencil, hand sliding along the paper, eyes on the point in the room where the glass and the bookshelf walls meet.

The bells chime and I’m startled out of my train of thought, eyes on the newcomer. Messy hair, a beanie. Oversized jean jacket and a crazed expression with a partly-opened mouth.

The customer blends seamlessly into the sketch and I request a cup of water from not-Elia. The song changes to the 1975 and I decide that today Papercup’s wallpaper will be lavender (in reality, the walls are a beautiful crème, but while that color’s nice in real life it’s such a bore to paint). The flowers in the vase at the front of the shop are sunflowers—vibrantly yellow and purposely bleeding outside the lines, bringing light to the entire establishment.  There are koi fish swimming in the empty spaces; bleeding vermillion and blue-black shadows cast on the walls. I give the books titles—Harry Potter, All the Bright Places, Ever Since New York. I’ve added a record player shoved up against one corner because it’s something I’ve felt this place was lacking since the beginning. I nurse my tea as a I wait for the colors to dry, before adding the final touches in white acrylic to give the painting—the room, the feeling—more depth.

It’s not the best I’ve done—the customer’s depiction is clearly rushed and nothing I would ever boast about—but the blurriness at the edges work. It feels right: fuzzy on the outermost parts, slightly removed from reality; the world within one of its own. One that is calming and not riddled with shouting family members and lousy customers and stressful coursework. One where fish fill the air with symbolism and intent and don’t poop all over pedestrians like birds tend to do.

My tea cup is taken, and I know that he’s refilling it again. I put away the art supplies, carefully making sure the paint is dry, and hum along to the soft lull filling the place.

I smile, happy with where I am. I open my book and begin to read where I’d left off, the top right corner of the page forming a small triangle to mark the spot. There were only a few cars out on the freeway, busted up…

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                 It’s not fair for me to feel like this, is it?

Like I push everyone away knowingly and then am surprised when they leave. When they stop caring.

It’s better like this though, is it not? At least this way I get the satisfaction of knowing that I was right all along.

But to feel like such a fool…for someone else to tell me how short you’re being with me over text..going through our entire conversation and surprised I still talk to you, as if I’m an idiot who cant take a hint…

Fuck.

Do you use me just like you do everyone else around you, for entertainment? Is that what this all is?

Did you take my heart with you when you left, and did I continue to send you shipments of it through tear-blurred video conversations?

Because I fucking did. You know me better than anyone. I’ve opened up to you about shit that I could never do with anyone else. And to feel like…like such a fucking fool…

I should have known better.

My insides are decaying and my heart is heavy and you’re so far away from me I can’t tell where we stand

Together or a million miles apart.

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I have literally no inspiration. 

It is the single worst feeling in the universe. 

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She lights the cigarette across from me, watching my sister dance around the kitchen, and isn’t that always what it boils down to? I watch her, she watches somebody else, and neither of us are ever happy enough.

He loved me.

I loved him.

I think I still do, and that’s the worst part of it all.

 The alarm goes off violently and I want to just curl up and forget about the universe. University isn’t a thing, neither are parents—in a world where weight and shame and fear don’t exist and I’m brave for once instead of just pretending to be.

 Yeah, right.

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“I always felt bad for Atlas, y’know?”

“Atl--what are you saying, was he Greek? You’re a philosopher now?”

“No, hear me out. I don’t know exactly what he did to deserve it, all I know is that he pissed off Zeus. And, like, who the fuck was Zeus to dole out all these punishments, right? So this Atlas guy gets the shortest end of the stick--he’s gotta hold the weight of the world on his shoulders for the rest of time. Can you imagine? Like, all of it. All the pain and the suffering and the grief and the loss, and not really any of the positives like happiness because those don’t really weigh anybody down, you know?”

“I don’t think that’s what the Greeks meant by weight, J,”

“Well, I do. Physical weight, yeah, sure, that’s gotta be one hell’a’va punishment, but emotional burden? Dude, that’s a whole different level of Hell.”

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Last night i dreamt that I ended up with someone who wasn’t you and you sat on the sidelines and watched, both of us unhappy. I had someone who loved me but couldn’t give them my all; you never worked up the courage to tell me what everyone but the two of us could see. 

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Oedipus (1944), Mark Rothko. 

I can hear you pour yourself another drink from three rooms away.

We all can.

It’s three in the afternoon and you have no business being such a disappointment.

Not to me; sure, maybe I don’t have a paternal figure I can ever appreciate in my life, and you’ve taught me to always anticipate disappointment and hurt from others, but if I said I wasn’t used to it by now, I would be the fool.

Our mother is already enough of one for the whole lot of this family.

You retreat, none to quietly, to the balcony, before realizing you were just there and are trying to escape the stretching view that leaves you suffocated.

Your shoes squeak against the floor, a cheap imitation of Italian leather. Everyone else outside of these walls seemingly buys it—you tell the lie often enough that you’ve started to, too.

 My mother has to text me to come to the kitchen, it’s so quiet in this whole house. My keyboard clacking is probably the second loudest noise in the house, after only his loud, labored, obnoxious breathing.

The rain blazing right outside doesn’t even stand a chance.

And here’s the thing: it’s such an exhausting trek. Because to get to the kitchen, I have no choice but to pass by his somber, piteous figure, which has been strewn across the living room as though his life has fallen into despair.

He brings this upon himself.

I hate him very, very much.

I refuse to make my way to the kitchen. I am right in this situation—I always am when we argue, that’s why it even turns out ugly in the first place: his vile pride takes precedence to all else.

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you’re a monster. 

you’ve hurt my little sister, my baby, my pride and joy. not yours. you’ve hurt her and now she’s trying to hurt herself and i don't know how to take care of her, and i cannot even tell our mother.

you’ve hurt her, too. you’ve stolen the best moments in her life, tarnished them with your presence and your inability to ever be satisfied with what you have. you’ve hurt the one person i love most on this planet--continue to do so--and i will never forgive you.

you’ve hurt the eleven year old sister i thought was beyond experiencing your vile nature for at least several years: by not leaving, by not doing the one thing you’re good at and giving us our space. 

you’ve hurt me by lying to me, getting my hopes up and making me believe that i could trust in you, time and time again. i am the fool, and you have hurt me by showing me just how pathetic i am. 

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Snick.

The small flame lights her face; illuminates the cigarette she’s got delicately perched between her lips. Her eyes dance with the light before the flame vanishes, gone. She inhales. The smoke nearly escapes as she opens her mouth, but she breathes it back in, the whole world being vacuumed up into her.

She’s that wonderful; she encompasses the universe.

‘What are you looking at?’

‘You.’

Shy laughter and the barely visible flush of her cheeks before she turns up to the stars, staring after her brethren. The smoke curls around her, frames her. The portrait is stored in the gallery of my mind, right alongside the other thousands which already reside. I’ll have to start painting right now if I ever want to finish at least a tenth of them before I die.

‘I wish you’d stop smoking,’ And it’s true—it’s tragically beautiful and it’s a part of her and I’d never ask her to change, but.

‘It’s bad for you.’

‘It is.’

‘Well, that’s why. Isn’t everything?’

‘I need to paint you endlessly.’

Laughter, she turns to face me again as she takes another puff.

‘What?’

‘Nevermind.’

—And I can’t if you are so desperate to meet your end.  

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Artwork: Oracle, Anish Kapoor. 

I think that when people are invested in something, they go quiet.

     When things get emotional or serious, when we are thrown for a loop: there are no words in the English language to explain what happens to an individual when they undergo that sort of sensation: true awe, obsession, passion. In any language—it is inexplicable, what happens to a person when they are unable to grasp onto any one idea, any one concept. We go quiet. We know nothing else, because deep at our cores, we all realize that we are nothing without our language, and our language does nothing for us. It’s all a farce and a façade and nobody can quiet cope with it at all, and therefore all I have to say is that language, and whoever created it in order for us to be able to feel some sensation of comfort, is a failure.

   But so then what do we do?

How do we cope?

We cope by settling with whatever we can make understood; by reaching out to those we think will best understand what it is we are trying to articulate and know that even without the adequate words, they will understand.

We hope that they are alike minded to us enough that they truly will. Maybe, hopefully, possibly, potentially.

 And it’s disgusting. Because we’re all so ordinary and so basic that to attempt to call each other out on it would be hypocrisy at its finest: because while we shit on it, we partake in it all the same.

Because while there are no words to encapsulate the utter highs and lows of being a human, of experiencing humanity in all its glory, there are a dozen synonyms for what simply expresses ‘what might be’.

The sickest part is that we as a species keep inventing and creating new things in an attempt to better be understood—language, religion, art, fashion, fucking facebook—just so we can maybe, possibly, potentially reach out to someone who will simply understand. Because if they are able to comprehend what we can express with words, tweets, colors, potentially they will understand what it is we are trying to say when these tools, these mechanisms, fail us.

 And it becomes all the more difficult when they are unable to understand; rather, when we are able to finally see it despite their greatest efforts at trying and we are then surmounted with one of two feelings: guilt or resentment, which, to me, seem to be one and the same.

 The guilt comes from putting them through—and, consequentially on the receiving end of the stick, yourself through—the tedious task of trying so hard for so long. Because here’s someone who does care enough to try but will never, ever be able to genuinely understand.

  The resentment comes from expecting and believing that someone could possibly understand and simply suffering the loss of them failing you—the loss of what they meant to you because you come to the understanding that it would have never worked and this façade that went up was simply conjured up to appeal to you, in some sense or another.

 Either way we always end up with the same final product.

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There’s a dog barking, a million miles away. I can hear it.

I can hear the waves lapping on the shore; the wind bristling the trees as it races through with childlike glee.

I feel every cell in my body. No, more. I feel every single atom. My hand shifts and transforms before my eyes, vibrating with the sheer energy of atomic contact, little things bumping and shifting and moving around in their own little designated spaces.

Not only that, I see them. I control them, and the power is overwhelming. Intoxicating. I can fly; I have telekinetic control over all my eyes can see, and even beyond them. The whole world buzzes with my exaltations: I know; I can feel it before it has the chance to process any of it.  

Then, all is numb. I’m narrating this to Ralph and Jamie and Jamie interrupts me—“Stop worrying about it, just enjoy it.”—“I’m a writer,” I try to snap back, because how dare he interrupt me, I can smite him where he sits, but I think it comes out more awe-struck, “I need to narrate. I am enjoying this. I am God. Pass it back to me.”

“No-o,” He says, laughing kindly. “I think you’ve had enough.

“I’m so numb,” I respond, “my mouth is so numb. Somebody kiss me.” I bring my hands (also numb) to my mouth, brush my lips. Maybe these two numb forces will bring feeling to one another.

They don’t and the apathy passes on its own. My mind Deifies from mush to it’s previous, ultra-strength, and back again in waves. I feel them physically hit my body, like crashing into the ocean. It’s surreal.

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6.08p.m.

it hurts to see signs of you still living life, carrying on, perfectly normally. 

As if we haven't talked in so long I’m tempted to count the days, upon months, upon years. 

Especially when I dream of you; at night, all my guards down when I’ve had too much to drink and it’s wholly unintentional.

in the last dream you looked exactly the same as the first time i saw you. the same dumb, dorky, lovely kid with the too-big nose and the mop of soft brown hair and i loathe myself for for happy i was to see you, even as a passing visage.