Obadiah Spelter
vs.
Stephenie Meyer
&
Her Hepatic Majesty
Written
by
Y.T. Whitemansson
MMXV
Artwork:
Edvard Munch, Vampire, 1895
Near the intersection of Cardo and Pollock's in Astoria, Queens, Francis Tudor and Obadiah Spelter share lodging in a rented apartment. Francis just finished second shift in the local hospital, where he's an intern. He inserted the key in the keyhole, but doors were unlocked. Obadiah and his girlfriend Alexandra are sitting on the couch, admiring the wonder of cathode ray tube, with photons bouncing off of their faces. They're watching TV.
Francis wanted to slip unnoticed, but he failed to do so.
‘’Hey Francis! We're watching 'Twilight', you wanna join us? ‘’ Fair Alexandra was always kind to him. She started feeling sorry of Francis after Obadiah told her some stories about him. How kids in the elementary called him ‘Fred Flintstone’. Because of his broad shoulders and his short neck. Because of his stupid hairstyle. They also called him ‘the wicked witch of the west’, because of his nose. His ‘beak’. Obadiah didn’t witness these, nor he knew Francis prior to the apartment. They were paired up by the landlord. These unpleasantnesses from Francis’s childhood were conveyed to Obadiah by Francis’s parents, on one occasion when they visited their son.
‘’Oh, yeah, don’t miss this’’, said Obadiah: ‘’It’s teenage mutant cream cheeses.’’
‘’Behave’’, Alexandra pushed him.
‘’What did I do?!’’ Through entire movie Obadiah was making vulgar jokes, he made Alexandra regret for opting to watch ‘Twilight’ with him. He constantly violated her suspension of disbelief, which she needed in order to enjoy romantic fantasy, with his jokes about cheese and penises and other parts of human anatomy located below the abdomen. It was unbearable. Obadiah thinks he’s funny.
‘’No, thanks’’, muttered Francis, but quarreling lovers probably missed that. He went in the kitchen to make himself a sandwich before bedtime. From there, he peered at the screen, at a scene where a pretty boy and a pretty girl confessed love for each other. Alexandra’s favorite part.
‘’Oh, yeah, love you too, right back at ya, just keep that pose’’, yelped Obadiah, slipped his hand in his pants and simulated the act of masturbation. That was the tip of the iceberg. Alexandra launched at him salvo of enraged insults, one-sidedly ended their relationship and left the apartment.
‘’Alexandra, wait!’’ He went after her.
Credits rolled, Francis turned off the TV and went to bed. He felt some sort of satisfaction because Obadiah got brutally dumped. He never understood why one elegant, classy and good-looking girl that Alexandra is, spends her time with Obadiah. Guy that’s too lazy to shave. Guy that has his fingers in his mouth all the time, like some toddler, because he bites his fingernails. Why? Because she loves/loved him? He fell asleep thinking of Alexandra and he jizzed his pajama during the night. He got up and changed his underwear. But, he couldn’t go back to sleep again. He went to living room and played that film that they watched. He liked the film, and understood why Alexandra is enchanted by it. Because it’s about the right one. The perfect one. Dream one. Now, he can go back to sleep again.
Francis Tudor is one shy and very private person. He doesn’t have any friends. Worse than that, there’s not any type of people that he can or would want to relate with. He thinks that everyone makes fun of him when he’s not around. Doctors, nurses, other interns at the hospital, Obadiah, Alexandra, everyone. Paranoia is certainly a long time tenant in Francis’s head. The Tudors named him Francis because of their love for ‘Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons’.
His flatmate, on the other hand, got his name from a minor character from the Old Testament, Obadiah, the prophet of Ahab. Obadiah’s parents are Jehovah’s Witnesses, which means that Obadiah has no realties. After retiring, his parents donated most of their property to the church, and went to east Europe where they can live quite comfortable lives with their American pensions, and preach the Word of the Lord. Obadiah has nothing. Worse than that, Obadiah has no desire to lead a normal life. He never went to college, or had a job. Everything that requires effort in order to yield results is not worth the effort for Obadiah. The effort is always greater than the result.
Only thing Obadiah still tries about is gambling. Legal, illegal sport bets, NBA, NFL, NHL, NCAA and poker. He started gambling back when he was a kid and never stopped since then. Gamblers are great sinners in his parent’s eyes. Is the result greater than the effort in it? Not yet, but Obadiah hopes that once it will be, and that it will magically cancel all of his life’s failures. If nothing else, at least he makes enough not to have to work for the rent.
Next time Francis and Obadiah saw each other was the following day around lunch time.
‘’How can I not make fun of it when it’s so stupid?’’, narrated Obadiah: ‘’Worse than that, it’s harmful for them. A girl doesn’t want to be human anymore, she wants to be a vampire. A fuckin’ vampire, man! And that’s just fine with them, and she gets to be one, and audience of humans falls in love with vampires, and they too want to be vampires, but there’s no such thing as fuckin’ vampires! And she breaks up with me because of a dumb fuckin’ movie. The fuck are you doing, man?!’’
‘’I’m making lunch’’, said Francis. He’s opening clams with a knife and soaking them in some marinade.
‘’What is that?!’’
‘’Freshwater mussels.’’ There’s a fish store down the street that Francis visits almost every day. They have a big selection of fish, crustaceans and mollusks. Francis is a big gourmand when it comes to aquatic food. Obadiah had no intention of eating that, he made himself a peanut butter sandwich and took off.
Tonight he has a Texas hold’em rematch scheduled. Couple of weeks ago, he played with some kids from Juilliard. They didn’t know him and he walked away with over five thousand bucks in his pockets. They made him promise them a rematch. Obadiah knows that this time he will lose, because they will all team up against him, the only question is how much.
Francis had the crib all for himself that night. He watched TV and then went to sleep. But, during the night, a nightmare started tormenting him. A blur, shapeless feeling of discomfort. He fought against something that was biting his neck and drinking his blood. It wasn’t letting go. Finally, he awoke. Something warm and moist was touching his neck. Lips. Sleep released his hands and they grabbed somebody’s shoulders in the darkness, and pushed that something off. Terrified, Francis clawed at the light switch and light illuminated the room. No one was there except him. He ran to the bathroom and checked his neck in the mirror. A couple of minor scratches were visible. He could have done that to himself in sleep.
It took him some time to gather courage and dare to turn off lights again. ‘It was all a dream’, he convinced himself. He drifted between sleep and wakeful state until dawn. At dawn, he took a shower, shaved and almost forgot about creepy last night, when he opened his wardrobe. Inside, a naked girl with orange hair was sleeping cowered in the corner. Bewildered, Francis stared at her. She opened one eye and Francis saw that her pupil is orange. He quickly closed the wardrobe and locked the intruder inside of his room. He left for work.
He couldn’t concentrate on anything he did that day, his thoughts wondered about her. As strange as it sounds, Francis concluded that there is a vampiress locked in his room. Endless
first shift ended and Francis rushed home. First, he opened the doors of Obadiah’s room to check is he there. Obadiah lied on the bed, bulked, like a stranded whale, sleeping. Then, he dared to unlock his room. No one was there. Francis slowly opened the doors of the wardrobe. A wave of heat flushed through his entire body when he saw two orange eyes looking at him.
‘’Please, close the curtains’’, she said. Francis granted her wish and firmly shut the curtains; there was barely any light in the room.
‘’Thank you’’, she said.
‘’Who are you?’’, asked Francis and she told him her story. Her name is Tinia. She is a human-like being from a different time/space/matter dimension. She hid from daylight in Francis’s bedroom. Light causes strong allergies on her skin and blinds her. And yes, she needs blood to survive, so she fits the description of a vampire. She apologized for drinking his blood. It was instinct. She didn’t tell him how she got in his room, or why she left her reality. But, she did tell him