Vampires and Werewolves and Ghouls, Oh My

A number of years back, vampire stories became all the rage. Sure, we'd had a resurgence of Dracula productions - Broadway, movies, television - but this was far different. It was as though publishing houses had been taken over by the occult and paranormal.

I've always been an avid reader, and as friends would tell you, I'll read anything that doesn't read me first. And when, I read...I really Read. It's not at all uncommon for me to go through more than 400 books a year and no matter how poorly written, it is unusual for me to leave a book unfinished. Genre doesn't matter. Topic doesn't matter. Critic raves or pans don't matter at all. It's what I think about the book that counts, and if it's really interesting and well written, I'll finish it in one sitting. I might even save it to read it again. And, again. That's one of the reasons so many of the mundane chores in my life build up to almost overwhelming proportions.

In browsing the book store shelves over the last decade or so, the popularity of the occult, the paranormal, the alien resurrection, the time travel, the ghouls, trolls, demons, fairies, witches, warlocks, and plain old fashioned monsters of every conceivable variety exploded to near mythic levels. Sure, such books have always 'been around,' but never in such staggering numbers. And while the Star Trek series might have started the phenomenon on television, that was soon augmented by vampires, witches, and other unworldly creatures...even angels for the timid and 'true' believers.

I've enjoyed it all, and still do, but I can't help wonder about the sudden but unflagging interest. Why these creatures and why at this time? Certainly, I'm familiar with the need to changes one's view of present reality by substituting something else. Imagination is a great place to hide or recreate or restores one's energy. When we aren't happy with the larger and/or more intimate world we live in, it helps to move into someone else's world, even if its only for a brief stay and has no similarity whatsoever to what we're used to. That is generally it's draw. But at this level of popularity? On this massive scale? I know there is a plethora of very unhappy people out there, but I'm really surprised there are so many who apparently read.

I don't know if I actually and specifically believe that vampires exists, but I also can't say with any certitude that they don't. I also don't know if I specifically believe in ghosts, but at the same time, I can't unconditionally say that I don't believe. The same holds for all the other 'things' that the imagination can conjure but that societal conditioning demands we deny. There is simply too much at the outer edges of our consciousness that we neither see in real time nor understand in dream time to deny every possibility. Too often there are moving shadows at the extreme ends of the light, so who is to say either yea or nay to any of it.

In a very obvious way, we do have vampires in our society, at least the vampires that we've been told suck blood from the jugular vein of the incautious. They're usually called bankers. We also have a form of werewolf that stands on two legs during the darkest hours of any day or night and chases down weaker creatures to satisfy its need for blood and lust. They're usually called abusive men, women and pedophiles. Then there are the demons, those devious, cruel and clandestine entities that goad others to depravity or evil. They're usually called marketers and politicians in the real world. You see where I'm going with this. For every entity we can imagine we can find the prototype in reality, because people are less than kind or caring about each other.

I admit also, to a hidden desire that all of these creatures, large and small, beautiful and ugly, sly or bold were real because that would also mean that their opposites also existed and that heroes were real as well. It would mean that the artists that draw the comic books had broader vision that the norm. It would mean that worlds exists in tandem to our own that hold elves and fairies and dragons and unicorns and gargoyles made of more than just stone. It would mean that there is more to life than our mundane living of it. It would mean that all the animals I've thought of as friends probably were, whether they had the ability to shift their shapes or not. It would be a cause for hope and curiosity and there is nothing better than those two things.

It would also mean that there was a possible unimaginative alternative when our own world grows too ugly and hopeless; that maybe we could by chance accidentally step into another that would be wholly different and perhaps carefree. We could think of aliens and potential alien abduction as a positive thing where there was different life elsewhere in the universe with greater knowledge. Or perhaps, if time travel had a firm basis we could go back and re-do something that put us on a bad footing with ourselves and our future...something like a cosmic Mulligan so our own bad judgment didn't count against us. Imagination and dreams would be such positive things.

There is so much in our universe we will never understand, and just as much we will never see or experience. All the more reason to want unusual beings or creatures to exist because that broadens our limits and expands our horizons. Besides, I would like to believe that much of what

the fiction writers publish is true.

Maybe I am just being fanciful. But just imagine - what if I'm not?