Here's the next page from my book of 300 Drawing Prompts (the last page appeared sometime in August); the prompt for this one here was "Your favorite emoji".
Dear diary,
I think I now understand why vampires like to play during the night and sleep during the day. It’s because all the parental guardians awake and begin to bustle when the sun comes up: they pretend there’s a good reason to keep raising children, as if theirs is the first generation of humankind ever to exist, and it’ll be a great mystery how the second generation turns out. “Sure, we parents hate our life, we hate our jobs, we hate our etc.” they all say; “but our children will grow up and love their life, love their jobs, love their etc.” Then every successive generation hates their lot as much as the last, but they continue to breed like a thing that can only see one step in front of its muzzle; so it keeps inching forward. If I say that this thing is heading toward a cliff, at first it sounds scary, but then you realize it’s even worse if the cliff does not exist, cuz that means the thing could continue inching thru this wasteland endlessly, fueled by dull hope. But vampires are smart: they say “If I’m forced to live in such low conditions, in a culture that not even a little rum could help get up on its feet, then at least spare me the garish daytime marketplace; I love the night because it’s rich and black and silent — I only wish it could last forever.”
But the city never sleeps. So urban vampires have it rough; their best hours are marred by the racket of taxi cabs, muffled music from nearby parties, and bedsprings a-creak with industrious prostitutes. Night in the city isn’t even dark, because it has millions of neon signs advertising the names of therapists.
Yet, I myself, being a suburbanite, am cursed with neither the roar of the city, nor the quiet of the country, but something in-between: the worst of both. Therefore I’m sad, cuz I can neither wake nor sleep. Or actually I’m always kinda doing a mix of both, but I enjoy neither.
What if I befriended a dog; would that make things better? Not a pet, tho: I wouldn’t want to cage him up or leash him. He’d have to be a stray dog who would accompany me voluntarily...
When we first meet, it shall be three o’clock in the night. I will have just arisen from sleep, annoyed as usual to find myself earthbound. The lid of my coffin opens, and I arise. Cut to a shot of me stepping out of my front door. What’s this I see? A little black dog. “And what is your name?” I ask. But apparently the dog only speaks Italian. “I’m heading in the direction of the lagoon,” I announce; “feel free to join me.” The dog follows, wagging his tail.
There were also other beasts who were observing us from various haunts in the background: they follow too. It’s the same cast of creatures from my previous entry, where I was telling you about the conversation that I had with M., our neighbor who lives diagonally across the street from us, namely:
- fourteen squirrels,
- some ducks and geese,
- a deer,
- and countless rabbits.
Also a few snapping turtles follow along, and some foxes and crows. And throw in a mole as well, since I believe we have a mole living under our yard. All these animals are in perfect health.
But let’s focus only on me and my dog, for now; otherwise we’ll have to frame the whole thing in an extreme wide-shot; and that’ll be like watching an animated church mural, whereas I’m trying to convey a simple story about a nighttime adventure.
Alright. So me and my dog take a walk to the lagoon. OK, now what. I motion with my arm and ask “Would you like to go for a swim?” The dog seems to understand: he bounds into the water and splashes around for some seconds; then he returns to my side and shakes himself vigorously, so the water droplets land all over me. Now I’m wet and uncomfortable; and there’s a chilly breeze. And the lagoon water has a repugnant scent.
So we cross the street and enter a diner. I sit down in the third booth from the entryway, and my dog hops up on the seat on the other side of the table. The owner of the diner comes over and says angrily:
“You can’t bring that mutt in here!”
I answer, “This is my friend. He entered your establishment of his own accord.”
The owner then looks over at Lil Mariner (which is the code-name I gave to my canine comrade), who is patiently panting with his tongue hanging out of his mouth.
“Is he housebroken?” the owner asks.
“I don’t know; I just met him. I presume not, since he likely does not own a house. But if he causes any trouble, I’ll ding the bell and have a staffer do damage-control.”
“Fine, then what would you like to order?”
After eating, we go across the street to the Cane Store and purchase a walking stick; then we head for the mountains. At 3:30 we begin our hike, and at 4:32 we reach the top of Mount Everest. My dog stands by my side at the peak. Then we start our descent, and we make it back to the grotto near where we first met, at a quarter to five. There we find an abandoned schooner. What happened was this:
Lil Mariner noticed something in the dirt, so he started digging with his paws. By 5:17 he had unearthed the entire mainmast of a sailing vessel. With the help of the rest of the animals that had been following us, the whole ship was eventually exhumed. We tugged it out of the ground and brought it to the sea. First we sailed to Greece, in honor of Odysseus, and then we sailed to China. We got to spend what remained of our night in conversation with the head of that latter nation, and I was able to clear up a lot of misconceptions that we United Statesians hold about that part of the globe, as its leader let me question him at length.
“But why would you trust what he says?” my reader now asks me. “For their leader’s just one man — how do know that his answers are correct?”
Well, for starters, he’s the head of his country, so I think he might know a thing or two about its land and its people.
“But he’s surely biased in favor of his own nation, precisely because he’s its commander, or whatever they call their chief executive; and therefore he probably offered you only its most flattering aspects, and, if there exist any unsightly flaws that he didn’t want you to know about, he most likely hid them from you, by simply neglecting to mention them during your interview. Haven’t you ever heard of ‘sins of omission’?”
So this skeptical challenge from my reader casts a blanket of doubt over everything I assumed I had learned on my trip to China. That’s why I’m not relaying any of the truths about time, space, power, fate, and extraterrestrial life that the leader unveiled.
So by 7 a.m. we stepped out of the spaceship into the common area near my home and waved goodbye to the Chinese leader. (He flew us back because our mainmast had ripped.) Then I said to my dog, “Well, the sun’s coming up; we better turn in.” So he trotted off in the direction of the woods, and I retired to my chamber.
After lighting the tallow candle, I sat down at my writer’s desk and dipped my pen in the inkwell. “Dear diary,” I wrote. “Now I finally understand why vampires like to go on adventures all night and then sleep thru the boring daily grind.
“Today I met a new friend: a dog who lives behind the gate out back by the woodshed. He & a bevy of other wild creatures accompanied me from the time I awoke, at three hours after midnight, till just a moment ago, when I bid them adieu.
“We breakfasted at Kunstler’s, that restaurant whose exterior is shaped like an automobile, and whose dining booths are positioned so that the space between them is wide enough to permit the passage of actual motorcars, which people are encouraged to drive in and park alongside their table.
“After eating, we bathed in the lagoon. Then I hiked up Everest again; and, in a bush near the base, I found this nice cane with a silver dolphin handle. So now I can finally discard that old walking stick, which I believe is cursed.
“Then Lil Mariner found a sailboat buried in the jungle, so we dusted it off and took a cruise. We stopped at the Happy Isles to exchange rumors with the great Achilles; then we visited China.
“So, all in all, it was a pretty full night. But now I’m tired, so I’ll stop here and go to bed.”
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