Okay, probably a fair amount of each. Maybe I’m feeling the COVID-19 shutdown (when does it become COVID-20?). I don’t care. I’m doing this. As no one else has ever said (I’m pretty sure), it’s no fun failing unless you do it in public.
Writing is a fickle pastime. I’ve written so, so many things that have never seen the light of day. Not even a hint of moonlight. In many cases I am vastly grateful. In some, however, I feel regrets. Such is the case with Varley the Vegan Vampire. I know, I know. It’s meant to be a kid’s’ book okay?! That’s what I told myself, though I think I wrote it entirely for my own enjoyment. It is, in fact, an unmarketable monstrosity. Yes, with literal monsters.
This thing is in common meter (tetrameter/trimeter) rhyming verse. That’s right, rhyme. It’d make Emily Dickinson think she’d been slipped a bad mushroom (possibly not for the first time). It’s vegan. Did I mention it rhymes? You get it. I could go on. It could only ever be marketable to far left, plant-eating, kinky-goth octogenarians who are super comfy with their inner (way inner) child. I haven’t found a publishing house that has a catalog for that. Strangely, though, this little tale is very dear to my heart.
I probably have sentimentality for Varley because my dad loved him. We worked on the story together. It’s kind of an homage to our shared hero, Edward Gorey. One of our last vacations together before Dad got sick was to the Gorey homestead on Cape Cod.
Additionally, it was Dad’s idea to name the character Varley. After reading the first draft he insisted, “It’s a tribute to Varney but he’s vegan. Get it? Rhymes with barley!”
My dad was of course referring to Varney the Vampire from the British “penny dreadful” papers of the nineteenth century. He owned an authentic printing of one of the Varney tales which he treasured for years. Yes, my Methodist minister father. He had a real goth streak. He loved vintage horror (more kitschy than slashy). He owned several hearses and funereal sedans over the years that he’d bought from local undertakers. “High miles but easy miles,” he said. As mentioned, we both loved the Gorey vibe. You knew I had to get it from somewhere, right?
So, enjoy this little offering if you dare. You may want to read it in segments if you aren’t accustomed to rhyme. It can cause painful brain cramps until you build up your tolerance. Since it was meant to be a story book, I found some vintage Halloween cards (and a couple of Gorey bats) to illustrate. I know, it’s not Halloween anymore. But, it’s not 2019 either. We’re all on a bit of a delay.
VARLEY THE VEGAN VAMPIRE
Varley was a vampire boy
at monster middle school.
He loved his classes, and his friends
the zombies, wolves and ghouls.
He always did his homework without
any howls or pangs.
His teacher thought that Varley was
as sharp as his white fangs.
He always aced arithmetic
no matter the amount.
In fact, on his bat-minton team,
his nickname was “the Count.”
At home, Varley had so much fun.
He loved his mom and dad.
His mother was named Hepzibah.
His father was called Vlad.
When it came to dinner time
he sucked every drop dry,
and then his father taught him things,
like how to prowl and fly.
Varley was a happy boy
the perfect monster tween,
and nothing made him happier
than Monster Halloween.
At Monster Halloween the kids
go out to trick or treat.
For monster kids the treats they seek
are not so very sweet.
They go out dressed in midnight best
to fill up all their sacks
with ladyfingers, pickled toes and
spicy baby-backs.
The Mummy serves a mean tagine
of succulent professor.
The Wolfman hands out candied hearts
absent from corporate bankers.
Swampthing cooks a gumbo up
with dentist in the roux.
Because of this, it really is
a very toothsome brew.
The Zombies serve assortments of
delectable sweetmeats
that once were brains from travelers
they met upon the streets.
Hepzibah let Varley stir her
sanguinary tidbits.
Her hemoglobin popsicles
can chill whomever visits.
So as the moon grew white and full
and rose up in the night,
Varley and his friends met up.
They truly looked a fright!
They pulled some tricks, like stink bomb spells
and stuffed themselves with meat
until they each had to concede
they’d had all they could eat.
Not one of them could come up with
a single, unused hex.
They’d had their fill of loins and ribs
and sweetmeats, and of necks.
The wolfboy got a tummy ache,
young mummy came undone.
So they split up at half-past ten.
They’d had their fill of fun.
Varley made it halfway home
then suddenly decided
he really wasn’t all that tired.
He spread his wings and glided
above the homes of Monstertown
beyond his neighborhood.
Below he saw monsters and ghouls
clearly up to no good.
And just beyond the village clock
he saw a jet-black cape.
A vampire boy he had not met?
Varley was agape!
He landed, and he said, “Hello,
and happy Hallows Eve!”
The other vampire waved and said,
“Hello, my name is Steve.”
Now, Varley thought that “Steve” was an
eccentric sort of name,
but he was not the sort to judge.
He liked Steve just the same.
The boy was Varley’s age and height
with fangs so sharp and white
that Varley thought his new comrade
must bear a fearful bite.
Steve preferred arithmetic to
spelling, Varley learned,
and also loved to play his sports.
His passions truly burned
for something he called football, which
Varley didn’t know.
But they had lots in common, so
they agreed to go
around to all Steve’s neighbors, to do
more “trick or treat,” since
Steve assured his new friend that
the sweets could not be beat.
“Did you get to the Miller’s house?”
asked Steve, “their treats are great!”
Before Varley could say a word
they heard, “It’s getting late!”
They turned and saw a mortal mom.
His new chum was a person!
Varley was stunned. His friend was food!
How could his prospects worsen?
No wonder that Steve’s fearful fangs
looked so fresh from the coffin.
In fact they were a plastic pair
just taken from a carton!
Unbidden, his whole life of meals
now flashed through Varley’s mind.
He saw the fingers, toes, and eyes
upon which monsters dined.
And with his super-human ears,
Varley could hear the blood
coursing through his new friend’s veins.
It made him feel like crud.
“I guess I have to go,” said Steve.
“I had a lot of fun!”
And as Steve ran away, Varley
pondered what he had done.
What would his parents say if they
divined his misadventure,
that he had made a friend who had
duped him with vampire dentures?
Varley shuddered at the thought.
He spread his wings and flew
back home as fast as he could go.
It seemed the thing to do.
His mother gave him some warm blood
and tucked him in his coffin,
but Varley stayed up all day long,
which didn’t happen often.
He kept on thinking about Steve.
He chewed and stewed and brooded,
and by the break of dusk Varley
had finally concluded
the foods monsters were raised upon
were archaic and crude.
He had a revelation. He thought,
“PEOPLE ARE NOT FOOD!”
“People are not food?” he thought,
it had such implications
on having fun, and fitting in,
and what about starvation?
How could he tell his mom and dad?
He could not even fathom
whatever he could say that would
convey his new compassion?
It was too much to contemplate
how to replace the food
that all monsters relied upon,
but his new attitude
demanded he make changes to his
basic way of life.
Though he did not look forward to
the certain household strife.
Yet there was just no turning back.
Not once he had met Steve.
Could vampires resist human blood?
He wanted to believe.
The next few weeks were just as hard
as Varley had portended.
When he first told his parents, they had
acted quite offended.
His mother thought that he would die.
So dire was her lament!
His father roared, “No son of mine!”
and he’d “prefer impalement.”
But Varley did some research on the
monster’s worldwide web.
He found out that a vampire could drink
vegetables, instead.
His research turned up many facts that
caused him great alarm
about how monsters raised people on
large factory farms.
They had no quality of life, they
languished inside pens
too tiny and too tightly packed to
even lay down in.
Philosophers said hunting free-range
might be more humane.
The livestock had a better life,
so no one need abstain
from harvesting their blood or brains
or tasty this-and-thats,
as long as people could enjoy
natural habitats.
Yet realistically, it seemed
the monster population
could not be fed just on free-range.
It would cause mass-privation.
So hunting free-range people was a
radical flirtation.
After all, what would come next?
Human liberation?
But Varley also found monsters
who lived a kinder way.
They dined simply on plant-based foods,
instead of hunting prey.
With all this information, Varley
fully foresaw why
it would assuage his conscience to give
plant-based foods a try.
He blended up some kale and beets
and plant-based nutrients.
He downloaded the data that
explained the rudiments.
His parents looked it over, but they
called it “blasphemy.”
To controvert his data and
avert this travesty,
they took Varley to all the monsters
they thought, hopefully,
would show him where he had gone wrong.
His reasoning was woolly.
They took him to the mad doctor
to get an education
about the vampire diet and
their predatory station.
“Monsters should eat people, just like
lions eat gazelles.
It’s our ancestral diet, and it
serves us very well.”
The doctor got out lots of books
to show that he was right.
He read aloud to Varley from
“Drink Right for your Blood Type.”
His teacher got a flow-chart out
that taught natural laws
and how monsters were meant to use
their fangs, stingers, or claws.
She said that, as a species, people
were a little slow.
They were put here to be food.
They wouldn’t even know
what they had missed out on in life.
They couldn’t think like that
(plus, vegetables are insufficient
in protein and fat).
“They are completely corporeal,”
she said, “it can’t be clearer.
If people had a soul, we couldn’t
see them in a mirror!”
It just kept going on like that
as days stretched into weeks.
Everywhere that Varley went, he
confronted critiques.
His friends would laugh and tease him when
he drank his juice, at lunch.
And it started to bother him
to watch as they would munch
on human parts of every type,
which dangled from their forks,
and where they saw a treat, all Varley
could see was a corpse.
On his bat-minton team they joked
that he would be too weak
to help them win their matches and they
said he was a freak,
but Varley felt healthy and strong. He loved
his plant-based diet,
except it started eating him that
no one else would try it.
He couldn’t understand how monsters
he thought of as nice
would willfully continue with
this dietary vice.
Despite what Varley told them about
all that he had learned,
they all remained oblivious and
fully unconcerned.
He felt so sad and mad that he
began to sulk and brood.
His teachers warned his parents to
correct his attitude.
His parents begged, cajoled and scolded
Varley, all alike.
He simply would not budge. It was
juice or a hunger strike.
Finally, he was sent home
from school for being rude
because he made a tee-shirt saying
PEOPLE: FRIENDS, NOT FOOD.
His parents were beside themselves.
This time he’d gone too far.
His father said, “I swear I don’t know
who you even are!”
His mother said to him, “I miss
my happy little boy!
This diet makes you cranky and
it’s sapping all your joy!”
“It’s not a diet,” Varley said,
“this is a way of life.”
His father stood up, dark and tall,
and glowered at his wife.
“This is all your fault,” he said.
“You’ve spoiled this monster rotten!”
“I’m not spoiled,” said Varley, “and
in case you have forgotten,
you taught me to think for myself,
and it made me a misfit.
I thought I could count on your help,
but you’re a hypocrite!”
He then burst forth in torrid tears
and ran down to his tomb.
He crawled into his coffin and
retreated into gloom.
It would be so much easier
just to drink blood again.
He could go back to normal, but then
he’d be bothered when
he thought of all that he had learned
since he had first met Steve.
He didn’t want to give it up, and
comfortably deceive
himself about the impact that
his daily choices made.
So he decided, then and there, he
would not ever trade
the lifestyle he had chosen for
societal permission.
At least, he promised to himself,
not of his own volition.
So by the time that Hepzibah came down
to Varley’s tomb
he knew that he could not give in.
He just could not consume
the human foods that monsters ate.
He wanted to hold fast
no matter if he ever was
negated or harassed.
But when his mother came to him
he had a nice surprise,
for Hebzibah had sympathetic
teardrops in her eyes.
“I know that you don’t think your dad
or I have got a clue,
but I want you to know that we are
very proud of you.
We really do want you to be
an independent thinker,
and that is true even if you’re
an herbivorous drinker.”
Varley was stunned. He wasn’t sure
if he could trust his luck.
Nevermore would he be asked
to prowl and run amok!
“What about Dad?” he asked, and fully
expected a fight.
But then he heard Vlad from the hallway
say, “Your mother’s right.”
“When I grew up my father taught
me to be fierce and mean.
But you have taught me something, Son,
that I had never seen,
that when you dare to stand up for
what you believe is right
it means you are the bravest one.
You’re not afraid to fight
even against the things those close
to you told you were true,
and that takes one tough monster, so
I’m very proud of you.”
And things got better, from that night.
His parents even went
with Varley to a monster
vegetarian event
where they met lots of creatures who’d
chosen to abdicate
all monster privilege that said
they could exsanguinate
or butcher, slay, flambe, fillet
or elsewise gormandize
unsuspecting people. Or, at
least, they vowed to try.
Their motto at this thing was, “Did your
dinner have to die?”
Varley met a zombie who
subsisted on whole grains.
He said that he could just no longer
stomach human brains.
And there was a Cthulhu there,
disseminating leaflets
elucidating “free-range hunting”
savagery and secrets.
A banshee that ate only beans
was keeping her eye on
a cyclops who had just sworn off of
meat, though not for long.
His parents tasted food samples, like
salad from an ogre
who swore that he had gained muscle
forgoing flesh for clover.
There was a boogieman who cooked
porridge instead of children.
He said, “I’m so much happier,
not eating like a villain.”
He gave them lots of recipes
and other information,
then Vlad asked him a question about
humans and predation.
“Why shouldn’t we be eating them
when they are vicious killers?
They overpopulate, pollute
the soil, the air, the rivers,
and wipe out other species as if
it were meaningless.
They even kill each other, so it
doesn’t take a genius
to see that they are pests, and it
is wise to cull their numbers.”
“Dad!” cried Varley, mortified
by this parental blunder,
although the boogieman just smiled
and nodded comprehension.
He said, “Yes, I can understand
your valid apprehension.
It’s true that we do not use humans
as a moral compass,
nor any other creature. Just our
own actions concern us.
But human beings have feelings, and
even complex notions.
Some even display ethics and seem
to show some emotions.
Why, there are even people who’ve
designed a plant-based diet.
They call it veganism, and it
causes some disquiet
amongst their friends and neighbors, but
they keep on slogging through.
So if people can do it, monsters
certainly can, too.”
Varley and his parents were
entirely amazed
that humans also know their diets
need to be appraised.
“I never knew that they had thoughts
or feelings,” his mom said.
“It makes me think that I might just
drink vegetables, instead.”
The boogieman agreed. He said,
“The bottom line is this,
we eat to reduce suffering, and
we don’t even miss
the foods that we used to adore.
we find our tastes have changed.
It’s just that our priorities
have all been rearranged.”
“I knew it!” Varley cried out, “I said
people are not food,
and if people can be vegan, then
I can be one too!”
For all his immortality,
beginning there and now,
he’d practice his morality.
It was a solemn vow.
And Varley meant it. From then on
the weeks and months just flew.
All the monsters dubbed Varley
the Vegan Nosferatu.
But his bat-minton team redeemed
the Transylvania Cup,
and when he did his schoolwork, all
his numbers added up.
So slowly, his professors and
his coaches did admit
that Varley’s plant-based diet had
been to his benefit.
The other kids still teased him, but
they started to adjust.
Eventually his juices were not
noticed or discussed
except when someone asked him for
a recipe or two.
In fact his mother got quite good
at juicing up a brew
of kale and beets and blood oranges
she called the “monster mash,”
and even Vlad might steal a sip
or two from Varley’s stash.
They even served popsicles made of
strawberries and greens
when trick or treaters came around,
next Monster Halloween.
More creatures came to try it out
than they had ever hoped,
and many said that it was great,
though several also joked
that they needed more protein, until
Varley’s father said
the juice was good enough for him,
the King of the Undead.
So after he helped Hepzibah
to make these vegan sweets,
Varley flew to where he knew
that Steve and he might meet.
He found his human friend all dressed
to look like Frankenstein
and as he looked at Steve he knew
that he would never dine
on human blood. No matter what
may or may not transpire,
Varley, in perpetuity,
would be a vegan vampire.
So if you’re ever out at night
and think that you have seen
a black and bat-like creature that is
vampirizing greens
it’s probably just Varley, so you
aren’t in any danger.
Be sure to shout your thanks to our
crepuscular crusader.
And if you are in Varley’s thrall
he won’t wish you to be.
Instead, just spread the liberty,
by living cruelty-free.
