Writers Guild 3rd Sunday Write Late Again
Yep, a full Sunday late again (plus two more days to post it here) and my fourth Sunday “3rd Sunday Write” essay again isn’t a favorite. Maybe it’s late spring fever, maybe a tiredness of “meeting” at a distance, but my entry was the first to be posted even at that.
So, no more delays, let’s have it here now. The prompt was the second of the four offered: What happens on the longest day of the year, in the shortest. And here’s what I wrote (if unfamiliar with the dropped names, cf. the original version of the movie NOSFERATU):
On the shortest day
the vampires play!
(Attrib. Count Orlock, the only vampire known to have actually perished due to an inconvenient sunrise)
Even Max Schreck knew better than that — the sunlight destroying vampires bit, believed now to have been brought about due to a careless script girl. Murnau, above all, knew that Dracula didn’t have that limitation, and Greta Schroeder was a dish any hour of the clock.
But it was inconvenient, the sunlight that is. Remember, sunglasses weren’t even invented back then, at least not ones ground to their wearers’ prescriptions. And vampires do have sensitive eyes, in that they’re used, by preference, to working the night shift.
It’s quieter, for one thing. Less interruption when listening to the howling of wolves! “What beautiful music. . .” — Dracula said that. And vampires have a high aesthetic sense, having lived — or unlived — through many eras, to compare and hone one’s artistic inclinations.
So yes, in one sense, night is vampire heaven. And the shorter the day, the shorter the time-out forced by sunlight. Even the Addams family, Gomez and Morticia and the kids, preferred moonbaths in their own back yard to day trips to the beach. And they, themselves, aren’t even vampires.
Thus it stands to reason, yes, the shortest day — and hence longest night — is preferred by vampires. Think, for instance, of pale complexions and avoiding sunburn. But if they’re surprised by an untimely dawn, they don’t explode into dust.
They just put on their hat.
