October horror shorts: Diary of a Weekend Vampire

Posted on by

I’m linking up with Denise at Girlie On The Edge Blog, where she hosts Six Sentence Stories, and everyone is invited to write a story, article or poem constructed of six sentences based on a cue word given.

This week’s cue word is Field

 

warning: contains vampire lust

Diary of a Weekend Vampire

I

Suzy trimmed my hair on Monday after work when it was dark
(I’ve promised her a book of poems and picnic in the park)
She cut her index finger on the edge of her scissors
And I gave a little snigger as I watched her in the mirror
Run into the kitchen searching for Elastoplast
And it got me set to thinking that nothing ever lasts
And roses that are red to her to me always turn black.

II

On Tuesday I was stuck in traffic and very late for work
Some scoundrel driver cut me up and made me go berserk
I fantasised about his neck and drinking road rage blood
Then at the perfect moment as he was just about to turn
I’d slash an artery here or there and leave him for the worms
Rotting in a field in the English countryside
Good for him I wasn’t on duty and only work part-time.

III

On Wednesday Alicia from accounts did my Tarot cards
She said she learnt them from a man who was a Russian Tsar
I played her up and drew for fun ol’ Death and The Hanged Man
And she rattled on ‘bout new beginnings and being the best you can
How my chakras needed aligning and my aura looked like mud
And all the while I was thinking I’d like to suck her blood
But Wednesday’s only half the week and I’m meant to be good.

IV

Thursday after work I volunteered at the skate park
The kids there think I’m very cool and call me Mrs Sharp
Or Northern Vamp in Aviators, Vans and skinny jeans
With links to Bauhaus, SoM and Siouxsie And the Banshees,
And I tell ’em go listen to the Cure’s Carnage Visors
While flashing them my fingernails and sexy incisors
Yeah, I know it’s cool to be a kid – as I once was before being bit.

V

Thank Fuck It’s Friday for I was horny as hell
Was dress-down-day at work and Alicia sure looked swell:
Alicia in black stockings and an off-the-shoulder number
And thoughts of gorging on her neck stirred me from my slumber
And after knocking off at four I met her in the pub
Should never mix my Gin and Tonic with my colleagues’ blood
Coz around midnight later on, Alicia was supped up.

VI

Saturday I woke up late with an epic hangover
Virgin blood and toasted bread, a nice refreshing shower
Then at the discotheque that night I spied my vamps-to-be
Gave invitations to my castle overlooking the sea:
A beauty queen, a nurse from Leeds, a cosplay Wolverine
Sacred rites, blood and lust all night… yes Saturday is the best!
Then precious sleep in ancient caskets, for Sunday is our day of rest.

***

***

***

***

Dedicated to weekend vampires the world over.

Poem and art card by Ford.

Editor’s note: disclosure – normally my Six Sentence Stories are written on demand subject to inspiration found from the weekly cue word. However, my poem Diary of a Weekend Vampire has been sitting in the Six Sentence Story reception area for more than a month, its impatient author waiting for our wonderful word mistress D to unleash a cue word applicable to my, erm, vampire urges, and all fine and dandy and in time for Halloween 😁 🎃

But time passed, and the cue words wouldn’t marry the spirit of my vampiric tale, and before I knew it we were almost halfway through October. Could I risk waiting for the following week’s cue word? Or worse, risk it with the last date in October? Not on your holy water! It had to be this week’s Six Sentence Story, or my protagonist lady vamp Mrs Sharp might be consigned to the perils of next October.

So, this Sunday, came the announcement of the cue word… and it was… wait for it, hah, oh, wait, what… Field. Umm?!? How do I fit part-time vampire lust into a field? Or a field into part-time vampire lust? It seemed our fearless word mistress D had delivered to your humble editor a deadly word-blow – akin to a stake through the heart at midnight while the coffin was still warm.

What could I do? Who could I turn to? Nothing at my Writing & Bakery School classes (micro stories while making tarts) had prepared me for this; nor were there any chapters devoted to my dilemma in the 1001 Ways To Get Your Sorry Ass Out Of Writing Trouble which Wooof bought me last Christmas; and my clandestine seances with the spirits of Edgar Allan Poe, Mary Shelley and Bram Stoker (The Three Dead Literary Spooks and a Rubbish Living Writer Society) garnered no advice nor wisdom other than: “Don’t give up the day job, mate, and can you get us any laudanum?”.

Only one thing for it… the word field simply had to fit! Somewhere, anywhere, even if it didn’t make sense! Well, luckily it did, in a way. And you know, on reflection, the word field ended up stamping itself with some authority inside the swaggering sentence: “Rotting in a field in the English countryside”. I really like that line. It also sums up Brexit quite nicely. Fuck you, Brexit.

I’m glad now that it was field as the cue word; and this is the beauty of Six Sentence Stories – you have to work with what is given, and this is not a constraint really but a liberation. And I love it. And I love our word chooser D for taking time each week to challenge us all ♥. If you enjoy writing, then come on over to Six Sentence Stories and try your craft. We’re a lovely bunch here, and we don’t bite (apart from the part-time vampires among us 😉)

24 thoughts on “October horror shorts: Diary of a Weekend Vampire”

  3. Wow! It isn’t even Halloween yet, but look what you just did! Very creative poetic SIX. There is just so much one could learn from your style of writing. Very impressive.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply ↓

  5. Back in the day, Thursday was party night on the university campus. What night this?… Exactly! 😆
    Clearly you had fun writing this Six, V. Very cool “formatting”. Which makes me curious if it was the title that steered the stanzas as a daily? But you know what? No nevermind, because it was a fun read 🙂 Now let’s talk the music. Never got into the Sisters however, I clicked the “Play” button, returned to the beginning of your Six and read it again with soundtrack. Nice 😎
    Industrial techno was perfect backdrop vibe. Totally amplified/enhanced the character’s narrative.
    Your “Editor’s note”. A bit of SOC? Excellent. I apologize for not providing a cue word that would have called out any number of your WIPS from the reception area. As peace offering, give me a word not previously used at the Six and I’ll use it in Sunday’s post 😀
    Lastly, before I succumb to Mr. Sandman – I love and appreciate your enthusiasm for Six Sentence Stories and however you found us, glad you did. I too believe we are “a lovely bunch here” at Six Sentence Stories.
    ..zZ-zZ-zZ..let the body hit the bed, let the body hit the bed…

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply ↓

    • Hi, D. You’re right about Thursday being party night in some quarters back in the day. !!

      Good question about the title steering the stanzas. It had a different title back then, and I originally wrote it as a flowing rhyme, like lyrics, a rap even, with no breaks. Then I saw it was concerned with days of the week, so I made it into a diary entry and split it into stanzas – so the title was part born from that. Then I thought this would make a good SSS, but there are 7 days in the week, not 6, so I combined the Saturday and Sunday into one weekend stanza, teaked the title to ‘Diary of a Weekend vampire’. Et, voilà!

      Soundtrack: I remember bits and pieces of the Sisters back in the day, and it’s only been of late I listened to all their albums. I love ’em so much now!

      You don’t need to apologise for the cue words – that is the joy of your challenge, being presented with all kinds of magical words. But if you’re offering me the honour of choosing a future cue word (and wow! thanks thanks thanks 😎😎😎) then I accept gladly.

      How about a French word? But one used commonly in the English language.

      I love ‘Boutique’, ‘Silhouette’ and ‘Menu’.

      You choose 🙂 😉

      Lastly, glad I found you all at the SSS too.
      See ya on the next one 🙂

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply ↓

      • A storied evolution. I admire your tenacity to work the words until they read as they should.

        Funny, when we get older, we often “rediscover” certain music we didn’t bother with then but really like now lol. btw, I’d been searching The Cure on YouTube yesterday morning. Not familiar with Carnage Visors.

        Oui, bien sûr. Excellent idea. Thanks for offering 3.
        FYI – I’d decided sometime in my pre-teen years I had been French in a past life 😀

        Next one? I still have to finish my Six for this week 😜

        Liked by 1 person

      • Music, like books and film – there is so so so so much to catch up on! A pleasure really, knowing so much art is still out there to be discovered and enjoyed 🙂

        Ha, I also felt a deep affinity to things French as a youngster. Would nver have guessed I’d end up living and working here one day.

        Liked by 1 person

  6. “A beauty queen, a nurse from Leeds, a cosplay Wolverine
    Sacred rites, blood and lust all night… yes Saturday is the best

    One of things about poetry I enjoy the most, (given my limited palate), is/are the rhythms created, an added pleasure to a list of the characters populating the above two lines.
    The whole thing, the story/poem/narrative, was at once engaging and entrancing.
    (virtuous feces, yo)

    I am one of those who love to look at the structure of a Six, in the sense of ‘how’d he do that’?, ‘that’ being a smile at the initial realization that there was gonna be some rhyming going on, the fun of anticipation of what is, (to me) structural complexity. And the cool thing about believing a story is structurally-complex is the excitement over how far the writer is willing to take things.
    then…. then! there was the business of the span of time, the days of the week, surely that offers a aid to narrative momentum, but not without risk….how to hit a predetermined mark (in time, i.e. day of the week) at just the right tempo.

    thanks for the fun Six and the encouragement to take chances and push whatever limits may assert themselves.

    (Loved the ‘writer’s notes’, the backstage conversation… shows over, audience has left, then to safely reminisce over near misses and seizing of surprise opportunity.)

    Your Sixes get me thinking about the process and, taken in conjunction with Paul (UP)’ compliment at the Doctrine, to the effect that he enjoys (my) madness, I realize you have have the gift of hypo-writer’s block. To embrace the ‘no-fricken-way-you-can-pull-this-off’ side of writing is surely the best of things.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply ↓

    • Thank you kindly, Mr Clark. Always enjoy your comments as they help me analyse what I’ve done and may try to do even better next time.

      Yes, writing a poem that rhymes well and makes sense is no easy task, and I think this one just about got it right. It’s a mind-bending process trying to make it work and keep the flavour intact. Not always particularly enjoyable to do, frustrating at times, but interesting in the search for the right words and highly rewarding when it rolls off the tongue when reading it aloud. My hat off to writers who make a habit of successfully penning this form of rhyming poetry.

      The span of time as in day-of-the-week format: this was excellent to work with, like a target really, inserting a mini adventure into each day of the subject’s week. Loved that part the most, and you’re right… this format for sure aided the narrative no end!

      The editor’s notes: I’ll keep adding these when needed. As you say, it’s like a backstage breakdown of events, and along with comments like yours and others, helps me to analyse what I’m attempting to do as a writer.

      BIG thanks as always!

      Like

      Reply ↓

  8. I love this six sentence rampage. Lots of work and time on this one. As to Brexit, the US is clueless on that I suppose, news reporting (all of it) being what it is.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply ↓

  10. This might be my favourite of your Six Sentence jaunts – a real Halloween treat, and nicely woven into the prompt with that killer line (and yes, that is an accurate description of Brexit and yes, fuck it). I can understand how the limitations actually become liberating, as it’s easy to become overwhelmed with ideas and sometimes a narrower path is welcome. Oh, and great artwork too!

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply ↓

    • Thanks so much, Jacob 🙂
      You’re on the same wavelength my friend – so sad the UK has come to what it is.
      Thanks also for the art props – it’s an old piece I adapted for this poem, so a double challenge in finding words and reimagining an image.

      Like

      Reply ↓

  11. Hi TVTA, another great piece of writing to get my fangs into. I think I have narrowed down the location of your seaside castle to two possible locations! Those are 1) Scarborough – it has a castle that has a great view of the North Sea and 2) which I think is a more apt choice…Whitby! Whitby is of course the inspirational home of Bram Stoker’s Dracula….and there is a field next to it’s ruins that is full of sheep. Or at least there used to be sheep there, I visited once on a school day trip and whilst we ate our packed lunch one particular sheep decided to grab my friend’s lunch. The sandwiches and the clingfilm/Saran wrap went with it!
    Oh, and both castles are within driving distance of Leeds!

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply ↓

Reply to this blog post

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.