Ch.1 - very removed

I pushed up under the windowsill and closed my hand around it, smiled for myself a little smile. I took out the key, a little silver thing. What is Nicky doing? Is Nicky killing people? Not what you would expect. He is only snooping around tonight, finding the keys to secret diaries. I put the key under my tongue and gave another little look around before rushing out of the room and down the hall.

I undid the latch quickly to the empty room and went in, going for the set of drawers where I had found the locked diary previously. It was cumbersome because of the height and weight of the drawers but I found my way into them, taking the leatherbound volume without bothering to close the drawer again or put things right. I tucked the diary under my arm, tasting the key with triumph.

Oh now who will have the upperhand when the most precious commodity is secrets? Oh will you continue to whisper things about Nicky now that we know so much more about you?
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Miriam, the brat, asked me once what it is like to be a monster and I told him that it is easy. Obviously for my part it is not everything that I am or ever have been, even in times of complete madness, and I believe in that. I do not share the philosophies of my counterparts, or the same struggles.

They question themselves about humanity, about monstrosity. What is a human, first? What is a vampire, second? What is it to be monstrous regarding these things? How do we balance them in order to be redeemable? They love that kind of thinking. I have not asked myself the same questions because I think that it is foolish to question the condition. I as myself have been a third thing. I am acted upon by nothing. My humanity, my vampirism, I am the actor. It is foolish to question the circumstances of man without considering his individual mind. There are no answers to questions of monstrosity and humanity because there is no control. I have been determined monstrous according to a philosophy that does not consider me.

I told him that it is easy to be monstrous because it is easy to be considered monstrous by such a person as wants to have nothing to do with you.

What about wanting to be "good?" What about punishment for being "evil?" I have only ever wanted what has come to me. It is not a lie. I cannot want more. I have gotten for the most part only what I have deserved and I don't know that I have been "punished." To say that what I am because of what I've done is good or evil comes out of the same line of thinking that gives us the humane or monstrous equation. I want no part of it. How does one go on living with those kinds of restrictions? It is the question that has been answered by the latest tragedy. The answer is that you don't and you can't. Humane or not, things pile up over the thousands of years and it gets you in the end. Everybody else is just a hypocrite. At least Laurie was honest about it. At least Laurie was always honest about it, and so he killed himself. I'd like a lot of the rest of them to go ahead and off themselves too and see if anybody gives half a s**t. I'd like to turn my back on the whole lot of them.

Secrets, hypocrites. Miriam is the worst, waxing about the vampire question in his stupid little unlocked box of notes. Leechtin is the second worst, a jackal pretending to be a butterfly. I know who you are, you damned snake. I've known since you first showed up in our flat in Paris so I've always known it. You can trick the rest of them but you've never tricked me.

I've always tried to be as awake as possible, the opposite of most of them. I've had to be. Laurie and me, we were awake. Now he's dead for his own reasons and a lot of others and I start to feel desperate, peevish, boxed in, angry, a lot of the things that I've always felt.


[btw the diary Nicky found is definitely -Take It With You-, and Nicky definitely knows what's in it.]