For The Love Of Val

Val was the exile, the unwanted outcast. Every school has one, the kid that gets harassed and persecuted for being different. He was definitely unique and distinct, unlike any of the other guys that year. However, I found him to be the most fascinating, mesmerizing creature that I had ever laid eyes on.

His long black hair was unquestionably artificial. No natural color could possibly shine so vibrantly beneath the light. Like a beautiful blue raven soaking in rays of sunshine. His skin was preternaturally pallid. It must have taken great commitment to avoid the sun with such deviation. I admired how lucent, and transparent he appeared. I couldn't help but wonder how it would feel to touch him. I imagined the feeling of soft coolness like exorbitant silk.

His eyes were somber and stygian. So dark and beautiful, I could have lost myself while gazing into the vacant abyss. He didn't articulate well, instead, he kept low-key and hushed, a loner per se. I found his voice to be surprisingly delicate. Such a velvet-like tone could have talked the moon right down from the sky.

It was safe to assume that I was secretly enraptured by this mystifying and perplexing young man. The only thing that I knew for sure about him was his name, Val. Such a strange yet marvelous name. Most of the other kids at school called him vamp. This was certainly due to his dark eyes and hair and pasty complexion. Perhaps it was also because he wore dark and saturnine clothes every day. Perchance it was because he never went outside with the rest of us. The other guys were cruel and heartless to him. Although Val behaved like he didn't care, deep down I know it was deleterious and agonizing for him. I had so much sympathy and compassion for him. I only needed to find a way to proclaim my feelings to the most untouchable guy I had ever known.

That afternoon I took note of Val sitting all alone in the corner of the cafeteria. The cold washed-out walls looked customary behind him. He always sat in the same spot every day. I suppose he was most comfortable being alone and away from the usual crowd. I decided to take his seclusion as an opportunity to furtively introduce myself.

As I neared the reclusive table where he slouched, I felt my stomach twist and knot as he looked up at me. I immediately noticed the sketch in front of him. "You're immensely talented" I blabbered. His mouth curled into a slight grin at my awkwardness. "She's my mother" he sluggishly replied.. "She's very beautiful" I carefully countered.

"I never knew her" he confessed. "This is how I see her in my dreams." My heart fluttered and palpitated so loud that I could hear its thumping in my ears. I wondered if he was able to hear it too. This mysterious, fuliginous boy had a tender side. I voraciously wanted to know more.

By the end of our lunch together I had learned a great deal about Val. His mother had died during childbirth yet he had great vivid dreams about her. He didn't seem to know his father very well either. I had a strange and peculiar feeling that he had grown up all alone. I wasn't sure that he even had a place to call home. If he did, I imagined it being a cold and dreary place. The thought made me feel melancholic and saddened. I had also noted scars and scratches on his hands and arms, he didn't seem inclined to talk about it. I wondered what could have happened to him. I was confident that he had faced tragedies that I was unable to decipher.

That night my dreams were filled with images of Val. Visions of his beautiful mother drifted through my mind. Suddenly my dreams turned into nightmares. I witnessed Val's birth, just as if I was standing in the very room where it took place. I felt the agony and horror that pulsed through his mother's veins. I felt myself choking for air as I witnessed the vivid carnage. I reached for the segregated baby and held it close to my heart. "Who is going to love you now?" I whispered as I looked into the dark, abyssal eyes of Val. Then the nightmare shifted and I was in a dark and forbidding place that I did not recognize. I saw Val sitting in a dark, disarrayed room alone.

The feelings of anguish and fear raced through my veins. When I finally opened my eyes it felt as if the terrifying mirage was still embracing me. The ghastliness finally conquered me as I collapsed into the most peaceful rest of my life.

The next day I struggled to make sense of it all. It had to mean something but what? I searched frantically for Val, I needed answers. If his past was going to invade my dreams, I deserved to know what had happened to him. As I sat in the voiceless, sullen class filled with blank faces, the noise in my head was deafening. Several times I noticed myself covering my ears to dull the screams and cries from last night's dream. The pressure inside of my skull felt as if it might explode, honestly, I wouldn't have cared if it did...at least I'd be at peace, away from this torture.

Suddenly I was shaken back into reality as the intercom buzzed and squealed above my head. The entire class sit like statues peering up at the ceiling. I cringed as I began to realize exactly why Val preferred to be alone. I sat quietly, feeling numb as I looked around the room in contemplation.

That evening Val offered to walk me home. I was surprised by his sudden offer, yet exhilarated for the chance to spend more time with him. I noticed the tinge of blood crusted and rimed around his fingernails. "It's a long story" he murmured. Just as all of the other cuts and bruises that I had noticed, this was also a mystery which he didn't want to talk about.

As we neared the edge of town he stopped in front of an old abandoned cemetery. I was certain that nobody ever visited the dark and creepy place anymore. Most of the gravestones were historically old, crumbling, and faded. Notably, most of the graves were marked only by rocks and handmade figures carved from stone.

I felt his hand brush against mine as he motioned for me to follow him into the dark, desolate scenery. As we made our way to the back of the cemetery, I was careful to not disturb anything that resembled a grave. Being there felt taboo and impermissible, I felt jittery and uneasy. We finally stopped before an unusual and macabre grave. I heard myself gasp out loud.

"It's my mother's" he whispered softly. I saw tears gathering in his eyes as he pulled his hoodie over his head to hide his face. She died the day that I was born, but she wasn't dead when they buried her. She was still breathing and they knew that they were burying her prematurely. She was accused of being a vampire. She was promptly staked and thrown into this dark, cold grave."

"Her grave was criss-crossed by heavy iron chains (iron being deadly to supernatural creatures), covered with a great slab, and an iron spike driven into it. They murdered her...because she was different, like me." "Ohh Val, you're no vampire." I felt tears of my own trickling down my face as I instinctively wrapped my arms around him. I felt his body tremble beneath my touch. My heart was weeping and suffering with him.

"Please, get away from me!" he warned. I was shell-shocked and voiceless. "Why? What's wrong?" "GO" he howled. I stepped back, unable to move much further. He whirled around with almost inhuman speed. " VAL!"

He kneeled on the damp ground before me. He was beautiful yet threatening and atrocious. With tears still crawling down his face, I reached out to touch him. "You don't scare me." my voice trembled. "I can see the real you." "I am so in love with Val" I confessed. He appeared confounded and distracted by my words. "I'm just like her" he slowly turned and gazed upon his mother's grave. He tried to stand but staggered and stumbled back to the ground. The iron chains must have been swaying him.

I hadn't known Val for long, but I knew that I wanted nothing more than to spend eternity right here in his cool, comforting arms. Val was only seventeen years old yet he had lived for one hundred and twenty-seven years. "I can't stay with you" he whispered with a shaky voice. "I'll hurt you, I may even kill you. I forbid myself to do that." "You're the only friend that I have ever had. I will forever love you." He stared into my eyes for what felt like an eternity. I could feel his eyes peering right into my soul. When he finally leaned in to kiss me, I felt as if I was floating high above the ground. Dancing through the clouds and kissing the stars. I had never before and would never again feel such intoxication.

Physically he left me that night, but he visits me in my dreams every time that I close my eyes - just as his mother had visited him. That was forty-five years ago as I am now sixty-two years old. I have never loved another nor have I aged since that night when he kissed me goodbye.

He breathed his gift and his curse deep inside of me that day in the cemetery. Although I am not a vampire, there is something unnatural and methodical about my existence. I wait patiently for him to return to me in my sleep each night. Soon, I feel that I will sleep eternally. This pretension serves as both warning and promise. I long for that moment to finally embrace me. Until then, this is my purgatory the space between sin and acceptance. The anathema placed upon me for loving the unholy and kissing the lips stained with death.