02/28/2024
HeavyAlice
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HeavyAlice
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Damn vampire days
I was 18 years old, nowhere near old enough to be out of girlhood, but already old enough to feel like one. It was that summer in 2012 when I slipped again. A small loss, a small life event that didn't go as planned was enough to unhinge my cozy, gloomy inner life and the already rusty hinges why all the more grateful when they no longer had to hold my thin nerves. Back then, this hinge was once again heartache of the most brutal kind, which I compensated for in the most unhealthy way. Sleep all day, party all night. Never grow old, never die.
It's fun being a vampire, isn't it?
Except for the small detail that I wasn't a vampire and that I was far too much of a social spaz for lavish parties.
While the dusty heat outside my window melted even the toughest road tar and the crowds moved in slow motion like sweating zombies, I lay on my couch in the small room of our first floor apartment and dozed off to series like "True Blood" or 80s and 90s classics like "Chucky and his Bride" or "Carrie - Satan's Youngest Daughter". The room windows were darkened so that no rays of sunlight could reach me and remind me that there was still life outside. The only thing I let into my room was the sunset, which fell through my dark gauze curtains and drew wonderful, blood-red patterns on my Victorian wallpaper. I never dozed off without a bottle of Coca Cola, which I secretly mixed with the expensive rum that I stole from my beloved (foster) mother and aunt's liquor cabinet. It tasted like vomit at the time, but it just made me feel forbidden and a little wicked. Like Tiffany from "Chucky's Bride" - a depressed goth girl who drinks rum and coke during the day and only wakes up at night.
At night, on the other hand, I opened my windows, which at that time reached from the ceiling to the floor, because the full August moon was huge in the sky and shone directly into my window. I remember the red wax candles that I then lit and the patchouli-scented incense sticks that not only I smelled of, but also all my walls and clothes. I watched "Interview with a Vampire" or "The Queen of the Damned". I ate at night. I talked to my friends on the phone at night - also night owls and vampires who saw little point in their lives back then and barricaded themselves in their crypts. I went out at night with KoRn in my ears to the playground next to our house, which had a cemetery next to it. And when I did fall asleep, it wasn't angels watching over me, but Marilyn Manson, Peter Steele and Trent Reznor looking down at me blankly from my poster wall.
As far as I was concerned, this vampire summer could have gone on forever, but it didn't. Life was demanding and when I was asked to go to an appointment at my new school, I had to leave my coffin and go out into the summer sun and even worse, among people. How was I supposed to control that without freaking out?
Maybe that's why I ordered the perfume, at least subconsciously. This was my first real goth perfume. I never really had high expectations - the main thing was that it smelled "different" from all the mainstream bubblegum stuff that always half-killed me in the drugstores.
I instantly fell in love with the beautiful sleep*e when I sprayed it on. It smelled really different - cherry, licorice, somehow nuclear and like masses of alcohol, so I was a little afraid that it would replace my rum and coke outside. As little value as I placed on the opinions of others at the time, I didn't necessarily want to turn up to my job interview at school drunk.
The crush I had on the beautiful sleeping girl immediately changed to genuine love when my foster mom called out : "What stinks so bad here?"
"IIiiihiiiiiii me!", I shouted happily and hurried out of the apartment before she could spray me with a Bebe deodorant or something similar.
So there I was, standing at the bottom of the stairwell in front of the glass door of our smart, white new-build apartment building, bracing myself for having to go into town in the middle of a Friday summer afternoon after weeks of dwelling in my crypt among bad incense, candles, dark curtains, horror movies and Type O Negative music, where Coke rum and bell pepper potato chips were my staple diet.
I was wearing black sunglasses, my black short denim jacket with various patches and studs (those were the days when you made your own jackets and didn't order them ready-made from EMP...) and my countless necklaces and rings. The perfume had meanwhile clung to my neck and, together with my sweat, developed into a bitter, dark purple cherry liqueur aroma. The scent wafted around me on the streetcar and it didn't seem to put everyone off - I could make out at least one guy who looked after me enthusiastically and sniffed the air.
The interview went surprisingly well at the time, despite my dire expectations.
And I think that was also the day I decided that I much preferred alcohol for spraying on rather than pouring it down my throat.
Cherry, laurel - I miss you damned, obnoxious sleep!
Just as much as those damn vampire days.
It's fun being a vampire, isn't it?
Except for the small detail that I wasn't a vampire and that I was far too much of a social spaz for lavish parties.
While the dusty heat outside my window melted even the toughest road tar and the crowds moved in slow motion like sweating zombies, I lay on my couch in the small room of our first floor apartment and dozed off to series like "True Blood" or 80s and 90s classics like "Chucky and his Bride" or "Carrie - Satan's Youngest Daughter". The room windows were darkened so that no rays of sunlight could reach me and remind me that there was still life outside. The only thing I let into my room was the sunset, which fell through my dark gauze curtains and drew wonderful, blood-red patterns on my Victorian wallpaper. I never dozed off without a bottle of Coca Cola, which I secretly mixed with the expensive rum that I stole from my beloved (foster) mother and aunt's liquor cabinet. It tasted like vomit at the time, but it just made me feel forbidden and a little wicked. Like Tiffany from "Chucky's Bride" - a depressed goth girl who drinks rum and coke during the day and only wakes up at night.
At night, on the other hand, I opened my windows, which at that time reached from the ceiling to the floor, because the full August moon was huge in the sky and shone directly into my window. I remember the red wax candles that I then lit and the patchouli-scented incense sticks that not only I smelled of, but also all my walls and clothes. I watched "Interview with a Vampire" or "The Queen of the Damned". I ate at night. I talked to my friends on the phone at night - also night owls and vampires who saw little point in their lives back then and barricaded themselves in their crypts. I went out at night with KoRn in my ears to the playground next to our house, which had a cemetery next to it. And when I did fall asleep, it wasn't angels watching over me, but Marilyn Manson, Peter Steele and Trent Reznor looking down at me blankly from my poster wall.
As far as I was concerned, this vampire summer could have gone on forever, but it didn't. Life was demanding and when I was asked to go to an appointment at my new school, I had to leave my coffin and go out into the summer sun and even worse, among people. How was I supposed to control that without freaking out?
Maybe that's why I ordered the perfume, at least subconsciously. This was my first real goth perfume. I never really had high expectations - the main thing was that it smelled "different" from all the mainstream bubblegum stuff that always half-killed me in the drugstores.
I instantly fell in love with the beautiful sleep*e when I sprayed it on. It smelled really different - cherry, licorice, somehow nuclear and like masses of alcohol, so I was a little afraid that it would replace my rum and coke outside. As little value as I placed on the opinions of others at the time, I didn't necessarily want to turn up to my job interview at school drunk.
The crush I had on the beautiful sleeping girl immediately changed to genuine love when my foster mom called out : "What stinks so bad here?"
"IIiiihiiiiiii me!", I shouted happily and hurried out of the apartment before she could spray me with a Bebe deodorant or something similar.
So there I was, standing at the bottom of the stairwell in front of the glass door of our smart, white new-build apartment building, bracing myself for having to go into town in the middle of a Friday summer afternoon after weeks of dwelling in my crypt among bad incense, candles, dark curtains, horror movies and Type O Negative music, where Coke rum and bell pepper potato chips were my staple diet.
I was wearing black sunglasses, my black short denim jacket with various patches and studs (those were the days when you made your own jackets and didn't order them ready-made from EMP...) and my countless necklaces and rings. The perfume had meanwhile clung to my neck and, together with my sweat, developed into a bitter, dark purple cherry liqueur aroma. The scent wafted around me on the streetcar and it didn't seem to put everyone off - I could make out at least one guy who looked after me enthusiastically and sniffed the air.
The interview went surprisingly well at the time, despite my dire expectations.
And I think that was also the day I decided that I much preferred alcohol for spraying on rather than pouring it down my throat.
Cherry, laurel - I miss you damned, obnoxious sleep!
Just as much as those damn vampire days.
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