Variations Three by Sharon Lee

Author:Sharon Lee
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: liad, sharon lee, korval, pinbeam books
Publisher: Pinbeam Books

First published in Variations Three, November1996

Passionato

Sharon Lee

THE BLOOD PALLS, over time.

I believe this is the reason why so few of us exist beyond the hundred-fiftieth year of our making.

Over time, the blood palls. Feeding oneself becomes, first, a chore; then an agony; finally, for some--for most--a hell. Anything becomes preferable to the anguish of taking one more sup, so one fasts. And one dies.

Those who survive this crisis of sensibility--those who evolve--are...formidable.

Formidable.

I am two hundred forty-seven years undead. Before my making, I lived 15 years in Philadelphia, the son of a textile merchant. I bear the face and form of a boy in the first beauty of his manhood, as perfect as the night she created me.

My mother named me Evelyn James Farrington. My colleagues know me as Jim Faring.

I am a painter. I do badly, which is all I expect. The others who work and live in this building--they take interest in my efforts, squandering hours of their short lifetimes to show me thus of perspective, this trick of capturing the light and this other thing regarding shadows.

My colleagues--young humans. So earnest. So full of life. Of--passion.

Understand that I am not human. I am--formerly human. In fact, I am a predator. But I spoke of evolution. The blood is not, entirely, necessary.

When one is new to the undead state, there is no draught headier, no nourishment more seductive, than a sup of that sweet claret. We drink from the artery in the throat--rich, full heart’s blood, sparkling with the passion of life.

Yet, what nourishes us is not so much the blood, but that which the blood carries.

Passion.

Humans have--such--passion.

And artists have so much more.

Above all else, I am careful. When the great thirst comes upon me, as it does one moon in six, I do not drink here. I go away--uptown, to the bars and the music clubs. Most often, I take a singer, though any who play from their soul will slake me. There was a flutist, some years back--vibrant, seductive burgundy! But that vintage is rare.

At home, here in the Abingdale Artists Loft, I husband my resources and watch over my flock most tenderly. It would not do for one of my young colleagues to experience that languor which is the result of receiving the fullness of my Kiss. No. No, they must remain whole, awake, passionately, involved in their art, producing that aura of lusty life energy so necessary to my own survival.

There are risks.

Artists are ... notoriously ... unstable. The least thing may with equal possibility fling them into a fever of creation or a black despair.

Years ago, I kept poets. The food was hot and wholesome when they were creating, but their passions consumed them even as I was nourished. It was a rare moon passed without a suicide.

Writers of prose are every bit as unsatisfactory as a reliable source of nourishment.

Visual artists are another matter. Perhaps because their work is concrete, perhaps because they work so intimately with the balances of shadow and light, weakness and strength.

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