Lust for Life
Deep in the woods of Northern Maine, there is a cabin. It is small and made of dark wood. It has only the essential rooms: a bedroom, kitchen, bathroom, and two small living spaces. It has a small screened-in front porch, and a red door. The house is lined with many flowers, shrubs, and grasses. In the backyard, there are two large well kept-gardens, sprouting every vegetable possible to grow in this climate. Just in front of the towering pines that encircle the property, there are a few fruit trees, boasting crisp apples in the fall and sour cherries in the summer.
The inside of the house is neat and clean, yet old. All of the furniture is mismatched, the cups and silverware are an accumulation of years of collections, and the only TV is a heavy box. It is homey, with a fireplace that is almost always lit, and piles upon piles of books and handmade quilts. This house used to belong to Arthur and Edwina Fleck, and as of their passing, it belongs to their son, George.
Arthur and Edwina were loving parents to their son. They taught him to love the land and everything it could give them. They spent many hours together, playing board games, reading books, baking and cooking. George loved exploring in the forest. Playing on his own, his imagination carrying him to other worlds. George had never gone to school, for Edwina was trained as a schoolteacher, and she taught him everything he needed to know. When George was 16, his parents left to go to the grocery store and did not come back. Arthur Fleck suffered a stroke while driving and ended up in a collision that proved fatal for the couple. George never left the house again.
George is considered somewhat of a hermit. He holds onto no sadness, he accepts that everything has a reason in life, lives must end for others to begin. He lives by the motto “Thou shall not kill”, and instils it in every aspect of his life, from his vegetarianism to his saving of mice that find their way into his kitchen. In fact, George is completely content with his life. He is optimistic, not in a bubbly out-going sort of way, but in a way that makes him find pleasure in even the simplest of activities. He lives in a simple way, a rotation of reading, tending to his garden, and eating the meals he learned to make in his childhood. He is now 80 years old. He is small and very skinny, but you would never know since he is always wearing at least seven layers of clothing. It is not uncommon to find him out in the garden in May wearing gloves, a scarf, and two hats. He is a sweet kind of man, one who gives neighbours his vegetables when they come by to visit, smiling his lopsided smile at them. And nobody sees this smile more often than his wife, Octavia.
Octavia is quite the woman. She is tall, stick-skinny, and incredibly pale with long, black, shiny hair. She is always wearing long black dresses, black sunglasses, and a black sun hat. She loves George more than anything, and left her entire family and life back in New York, just to come settle down with him. Unlike George, she is very social and loves the company of others, although she is also content to spend the majority of her time alone with him. She loves reading and cooking, and has introduced George to many new recipes. She loves being George’s wife, and although she may look 40 years younger than him, she is about 120 years older. Octavia is a vampire.
How did this holy matrimony come to be? It really is quite the story. About 20 years ago, George started feeling funny. He would get dizzy very easily, fainted almost every time he got out of the shower, and had trouble doing intricate tasks with his hands. George was suffering from small strokes. One day, while pruning his carrot plants in the garden, he had his biggest stroke yet. He was knocked onto his side, clutching his heart, gasping for air as the world began to fade. He took a big deep breath, what he thought would be his last, and closed his eyes. Silently, he thanked the universe for all the pleasure it had brought to his life, the many sunrises and sunsets he saw, the many laughs he heard, and the many delicious foods he tasted. He felt the world slowly start to slip away.
By coincidence, Octavia Van Elt had gotten quite fed up with her life in New York. There was always a party to go to, always a drug to be taken, someone to see, and all the unbearable noise. These factors sent her fleeing for a break, in the most boring location she could think of… Maine. She was walking down the road when she saw George, curled up in his garden. “Just my luck!” she thought, “I’ve gone days now without a proper meal, and now I find one, freshly dead, all to myself!” She ran over to where he layed and knelt down beside him. As she took his head gently in her lap and leaned in to feed, George’s eyes opened. It was love at first sight. George gazed into her dark eyes, Octavia gazed back in wonder at the man’s large, kind, blue eyes. “Have you come to save me?” George sputtered. His goodness just pooled out of him with every word he spoke. Octavia could literally feel her heart melt.
What happened after is history, but the two have been together since. They eloped, a very tiny wedding with no one but the two of them and a lawyer present. The “ceremony” happened at their dining room table. George still does not leave the house, but Octavia makes sure to take very good care of him. She goes out once a week to buy groceries, pick up his prescription medication and blood thinners, and one week a month she leaves to visit her family in New York. George misses her when she’s gone, but he knows that this place is his home and he could never feel it anywhere else. They spent almost all their time together. Octavia has given up drinking human blood, she eats only animals, much to George’s dismay. However, he realises everyone has their own path in life, and above all, he wants his wife to be safe, healthy and happy.
Although their life seems simple and content, it wouldn’t be real without a few conflicts. Octavia is terrified. She hasn’t had human blood for years, and is unsure of its effects on her body. Every time she goes to visit her family, they let her know how she is looking even paler, even skinner, even more dead. They worry for her health, and deep down she knows George does as well. However, she knows she cannot kill. Killing would in turn kill George. He cannot live with a murderer, he has seen firsthand what death does to a family. It is an agreement that cannot be changed. Yet, Octavia is scared for her health and her well being. Recently she has begun to find little, pinprick sized scabs all over her body. She doesn’t know what it’s from but she knows it can’t be good. She is also scared for George’s well being. Nobody knows the long term effects on a vampire of not drinking blood. What if one day it becomes too much, she breaks, and she accidentally kills him? How would she live with herself knowing she killed the love of her life? She knows George thinks she’s going to kill him. She can see the fear in him. He’s getting even quieter than usual, he no longer talks at dinner and when he does he can barely manage a full sentence. It sounds as though he is carefully picking every word, forcing out each syllable, scared of what fate the sentence will bring upon him. He’s sleeping more often, as if every moment with her is an opportunity for her to kill him, and sleep is the only escape. He is so out of it. He can no longer read or hold a book for that matter, his hands shake so much with fear. He spends all day outside gardening, or even simply sitting in the garden, staring at the sky, as if he knows Octavia can’t spend long out there, and it is his safety against her. It’s tearing her up inside to watch her own husband turn away from her.
Late Friday evening, Octavia slips out of bed. It is pitch black outside, and the world is sleeping as soundly as her husband next to her. She tiptoes to the front door, slips into her shoes and sneaks out the front door. Her mind is so full of thoughts that the next thing she knows, she’s in front of the city’s morgue. Her palms dripping sweat, she pushes open the door and creeps in. Her steps echo down the long hallway, until she reaches the room of the recently deceased. All her senses go into overdrive, she blacks out.
Octavia stands on her front porch, pacing, too terrified to go inside. How will she ever be able to face her husband knowing what she’s done? She’s broken his trust, and it ruins her deep to the core. She knows she has to tell him the truth, but how could she? Sweet George, kind to every animal, always expressing the selflessness his parents taught him. She was a monster. He had to know. She took a deep breath before entering the house. Early morning sunlight streamed through the living room window. “George!” she called. She knew he would be awake, that man would rather die than miss a sunrise. Her voice lingered through the house, no response came. She walked to the bottom of the stairs, “George?” Again, no answer. Her heart pounded even harder. Where could he be? He never left the house. Could he have seen her slipping away last night, knew what she was doing, packed his things and left? Her husband knew her like the back of his hand, he must have known she was going to kill. It must have broken him to stay there with someone who could so easily leave him, break all their promises. Octavia leapt up the stairs and ran to their bedroom, hoping to find George still packing, hoping she’d have one more chance to talk to him. “George!” she cried as she pushed open the door.
There was George, laying next to the bed, on the floor. Unmoving. “George!” she screamed as she ran to him and knelt beside him. She touched his body. Even through all his layers of clothes, the coldness of death was apparent. “I don’t understand!” she sobbed, “Why did this happen? George! George, can you hear me?” She received no response. She sprung up and rushed to the bedside table to grab the telephone book. “George’s doctor” she thought, “He’ll know what to do.” She opened the drawer to find the telephone book; instead she found a drawer full of syringes. Some used, some still fresh in their packages. She grabbed George off the floor, set him on the bed, and pulled up his sleeves. All over his arms he was covered with tiny marks and scars, each one the size of a prick from a needle. His body was completely pale, so lifeless, as if all the blood had been drawn out of him.
All the blood had been drawn out of him. George had done it himself, over a matter of months. He knew Octavia like the back of his hand, he knew she was struggling. He watched her try to exist within his standards of not killing. He saw her grow more anxious, more weary, and knew he had to do something. He started drawing his own blood, sometimes injecting it straight into her while she slept, sometimes sneaking it into her food or coffee, anything to give life to his dying wife. It made him so tired, he could barely manage to eat, read or sleep. He knew his blood loss was killing him, but he’d give anything to keep Octavia alive, even if it meant giving himself up.
Sitting on the bed next to him, Octavia knew what had happened. She cried. She cried for her dead husband. She cried for having betrayed her dying husband, without a cause. He died while she was out breaking her promises. He gave his life for her, and she wanted more.
