16 Comments
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GreyWitch's avatar

Me too. My Da passed on the 24th and I buried him the 31st so I hate the holidays. But this little diddy made my day! ❤️

Charles Bastille's avatar

I'm glad it helped and sorry for your loss!

GreyWitch's avatar

He and Mum had a good life. Just sucks when you realize you are an orphan for the second time. Life is strange 🤷‍♀️

EllenPepper's avatar

I enjoyed this story.

If it helps, I'll be alone at Christmas, too. My bro will be here but we don't celebrate the event at all and he'll be glued to his computer watching his maga videos. lol

Charles Bastille's avatar

That sounds worse!

EllenPepper's avatar

It’s better to be alone, in that case. You’re the lucky one.

Gloria Horton-Young's avatar

I love your story!

Charles Bastille's avatar

Thank you! I won't claim it as my best effort, but it sure was a lot of fun to write.

Roberta Houle's avatar

Weird. Strange Charles. Very clever. Thanks for the much needed laugh. 😊

I’m enjoying your substack.

Paula Rossi's avatar

That was fun! And my first vampire story of any kind!

Ice made it to my neck of the woods this week. Tearing families apart rips the fabric of our society. How do we recover from that?

Charles Bastille's avatar

Living vicariously through vampires was probably not on your bingo card, eh? :-)

Sorry to hear about the ICE appearance. The ramifications of so many things about this regime are hard to ponder right now. Maybe a sense of benevolence will befall the nation as a reaction against it. I don't think people are inherently bad. Good luck!

Neural Foundry's avatar

Brilliant satire here. The idea of vampires weaponizing their purple skin to mock ICE's racial profiling turns the absurdity of enforcement tactics into somethng visceral and darkly funny. I've seen how dehumanization works in real enforcement contexts, and flipping it so the 'other' has all the power really exposes teh underlying cruelty. The Discord chat framing was especially clever for establishing their collective disgust.

Charles Bastille's avatar

Thanks! I appreciate the read. I'm glad you liked it.

Sharon C Storm's avatar

I won’t be alone, I have 4 children, 16 grandchildren and 18 great grandchildren, so since I live in a small apartment, I’ll be visiting my children who live nearby. It will be a fun day for me, because I’m old, and they all ‘take care’ of me.

Charles Bastille's avatar

Wow that's great! I can't imagine that many grandkids! Part of it for me is the stroke I had last November. I'm recovering, but it's taking my body long enough to heal that I can't really get out to my family in the Midwest. I'll zoom a little, and I'll be fine.