passed something to me?’’
‘’Yes, you’re right, I’m probably just anemic from chronic blood loss.’’
‘’If I cannot turn you into a human, Tinia, then I would like to become a vampire, like you. I want to be with you forever, no matter the cost. Tell me Tinia, tell me it’s possible.’’
‘’I love you, I would do everything for you.’’
…
The recording went on for about eight hours, but only the first few had conversation recorded. It’s done now. Obadiah sat there bedazzled. ‘Schizophrenia… or multiple personality disorder, or maybe they don’t even have a name for it yet…’ Then, he gave in to a thought experiment. He allowed the existence of Francis’s vampire friend. His people, Jehovah’s Witnesses, acknowledge the existence of demons, so why not? Let’s say that Francis really is hiding a she-vampire in his room. Why didn’t Obadiah saw her, he was inside thrice? She apparently came after Francis called her name. Let’s say that Obadiah can’t see her. But, if she exists, she would have seen him, and tell that to Francis, and Francis would know that Obadiah was entering his bedroom, which he doesn’t. So, no, she doesn’t exist. ‘But, who is Francis riding every night, then?’, thought Obadiah: ‘What is he, fucking a pillow?’
The experiment irritated him. He got up and went towards Francis’s room. He hesitated for a moment, trying to eliminate the irrational. ‘’This is stupid.’’ He pressed the door handle. It’s locked. Obadiah kneeled down and peered through the keyhole again. His eye searched movement, but there wasn’t any. All is still.
‘’Yo, vampire chick! Show yourself! Come to Obadiah, you…’’ He sat on the floor, dizzy and flaky from lack of sleep. ‘’You, figment of Francis’s fantasies… You‘re not real… I wonder what you look like…’’
He spoke with ‘her’ for some more and then finally went to his room and to sleep. He awoke around dinner time and Francis was there for dinner too. Francis looked like shit.
‘’What’s happening with you, man?’’
‘’I’m coming down with flu’’, said Francis.
‘‘You should go see a doctor.’’
‘’I am a doctor.’’
‘’Maybe, you should see one that can help you. Because, seems to me, like you could really use some help right now.’’ This statement angered Francis.
‘’Don’t preach me, Obadiah! Look at yourself first! Which one of us really needs help?! Huh? What do you know about me, and what I need?! Nothing!’’
‘’I know you think there’s a vampire chick in your room that spreads her thighs for blood.’’
A flash of sudden heat ran through Francis’s body, and pulsated in his head. The feeling of deepest embarrassment for having his shameful secret revealed. As quick as it came, the pulsating stopped. Francis is not afraid of Obadiah - of one pathetic feeble stray dog that can’t do anything else but bark. Gods have put Obadiah on this planet for the sole reason of lifting Francis’s spirit when he’d compare himself to him.
‘’For you, I am Apollo.’’
‘’What?’’
Francis went to his room. ‘What a loon. I think he intended an insult for you, Obadiah.’ People tend to look down at Obadiah, frequently. There’s nothing he likes more than being stopped at entrances of gambling establishments, for his worn-out loafers and unironed shirts, and then being allowed inside, once he flashes the cash. Obadiah doesn’t need to wear respect on his feet and his shoulders; he’ll gain it with a deck of cards. Once.
Although still curious about Francis’s secret, he settled not to spend any more time thinking about him. He realized that whole six days have past since his fight with Alexandra, and in those six days, he didn’t even try to give her a call. He was preoccupied with online betting and spying on his flatmate. He actually felt relief, because he was free of humoring her. All those things they did that normal couples do, Obadiah did to humor Alexandra. If it was by his choice, they would be watching Sports TV, and playing cards.
Obadiah lacks certain desires and motivations that most human beings succumb to. And he can’t make himself pretend to care, even if every other single person in the city around him does. To love and be loved and have a normal life. And carry smartphones.
But, he figured, he should give a call to Alexandra, as is the custom. He called her from the fixed line of the apartment, but the call was declined. Tomorrow is Wednesday. If Obadiah recalls right, Wednesday mornings Alexandra attends some course in the amphitheater of her university. Tomorrow morning, Obadiah got up early and walked to Sciences and Arts University, where Alexandra studies biology. He entered the amphitheater, and sat high in the stands, waiting for Alexandra to appear. Before the clock chimed eight times, students filled the amphitheater; Alexandra and her friends came in last before the professor. The old man turned off the lights, and started inserting slides into the projector. Obadiah wanted to leave and wait for Alexandra outside, but it was too dark now to see the steps; he was forced to stay and watch the old man’s lecture.
On the official pages of the University can be read that the old man’s name is Drastamat Derdzak. It says he was born in 1939 in Soviet Union. There, he was a member of Academy of Sciences, and the head of Moscow Research Institute for Medical Sciences. After the collapse of the Union, he relocated to the States. Here, he teaches evolutionary biology. He never married and doesn’t have any children.
Today, for some reason, he talked about snails. He stopped in front of the projector, as he was fixing its light, and all the vibrant colors of his colorful slides reflected on his body. It made him look – at least in Obadiah eyes, and due to his large and bearded physique – like some Hawaiian Santa Claus. Instead of listening to Drastamat’s lesson, Obadiah imagined him playing ukulele. This image made Obadiah happy, and he barely refrained himself from bursting into laughter.
Without ukulele, Drastamat’s snail lecture was monotonous, and darkness of the chamber made Obadiah fall asleep. He dreamed. He couldn’t remember the content of the dream, but it left an unpleasant feeling of discomfort in his chest. As it often happens with dreams, just the last image of it stayed in Obadiah’s mind as he woke up – the image of a giant snail shell out of which Francis crawled out and ranted.
‘’Look at yourself first! Which one of us really needs help?!’’
First thing that awoken Obadiah’s eyes managed to focus on was a projected image of a snail with grotesquely swollen eyestalks that were pulsating green, yellow and red.
‘’Jesus Christ.’’ It looked like a real life inspiration for spiraling eyes of cartoon characters.
‘’…After infecting the snail, leucochloridium causes mutations on the snail’s cerebral ganglion’’, spoke Drastamat: ‘’Changing the behavior of the snail. The infected snail, unlike the uninfected one, stays in the open in daylight, making himself visible to birds. Birds mistake its infected eyestalks for caterpillars, ingest it, and leucochloridium’s life cycle continues in bird’s digestive tract…’’
‘’It takes over its mind’’, one student commented: ‘’It turns the snail into a zombie.’’
‘’Well, we cannot know to which degree the parasite controls the actions of the snail’’, answered the professor: ‘’It could be that it only interferes with snail’s vision, inhibits its perception of light and dark.’’
‘’Yeah, but, that’s definitely not the case with dicrocoelium’’, said one female voice.
‘’Dicrocoelium actually controls the nervous system of the ant; it makes the ant climb the blade of grass at night and clamp its mandibles there. It releases the ant during day to prevent them both dying from direct sunlight exposure. But, at night, dicrocoelium takes control of the ant again, and makes him hang on the blade of grass, and so on until some grass browsing animal doesn’t swallow them along with the grass. You have to admit, that’s far too complex to explain it with just light and dark perception inhibition.?
??’
It sounded like she is fascinated by this ugliness that Mother Nature created. Obadiah was ready to puke his guts out.
‘’Yes, you are referring to the liver fluke’’, said Drastamat. ‘’Snails also include intermediary hosts for that parasite…’’
Snails. Francis eats snails. He eats raw shellfish, just with lemon juice; Obadiah saw him many times. And snails. Cooked or not, Obadiah doesn’t know, he only remembers seeing their shells in Francis’s plate. Although, Francis never called them snails. Escargot. Maybe, thought Obadiah, Francis isn’t a schizophreniac, or MPD-iac, or playing some erotic game with himself, maybe, he swallowed some bug along with his slimy food. And now, it’s making him see things. ‘Good god, I share toilet with that man…’ That thought made him flinch.
While Obadiah was still listing potential parasite-carrying meals on Francis’s menu, Drastamat finished his lecture, and students started leaving the amphitheatre. By the time Obadiah reacted to this, Alexandra was already gone. He rushed quickly down the stairs, and into the hall.
Already halfway across