Allergies
(Written for The Drabblecast and published on October 22, 2008. You can find the audio version here: Drabblecast #86)
Ferdinand Hoyton was born sneezing. As a child he sneezed. As a teenager he wheezed, his eyes watered . . . and he sneezed. As an adult, he lived alone, hopped up on antihistamines. Even still, he had to replace his computer twice a year from all the snot and mucous he sprayed while working as an at-home claims processor.
He didn’t date.
He’d had sex exactly three times. And paid for it.
So when the stroke killed him during a sneezing fit, he was, actually, quite relieved.
Until, that is, he emerged from the tunnel of light into heaven . . . and sneezed.
— Las Cruces, 2008
~~~
“The movies lie.”
His slender fingers caress the wine glass. His eyes are dark, drowning the candlelight. Then, moving like silk and smoke he is by my side, lips soft and hot on my ear and his breath the sharp tang of blood.
“There is always and only one of our kind,” he says and smiles. Elongated canines flash. He kisses the pale blue vein on his wrist, then, with a savage growl, he tears his flesh open, quickly clamping my mouth to the raw wound. I suck and suck until he is dry and dust and I . . .
. . . have Become.
— New York City, 2007