Greetings, Let's begin with a true story I can relate first-hand. It's the story of a young nurse who left her small town home of Csiksomlyo in the Carpathian Mountains. She traveled west, first by rail, then boat, from her childhood home in Transylvania to a place called New Hampshire in the United States. After several years there, she went further west to the city on the lake, Cleveland, in Ohio. There she met another émigré, who spoke her native language, in citizenship school. The tall, dark-haired young engineer carried her books home from class and, after a respectable courtship, they wed, at which time she quit her nursing job to begin their family, Okay, that's for another newsletter.

         I was the couple's firstborn, a pale blond curly top with blue eyes, recalled in several years' of photographs. That is, until the summer of my fifth year, when I morphed from blond ringlets to auburn brown pigtails, and from blue eyes to brown. That also is memorialized in a photo my dad took my first day of elementary school.

         But my mom who, like most all moms, notices the little things, saw that my eyes didn't completely change. A blue rim encircled the brown of each eye, which remain so to this day. It seems like she kept guard over me, and meted swift punishment for any and all evil, from back talk to talking in church to throwing a brick at my brother. It seemed to get more intense when as a teen I tried to talk with her about mom-daughter things like my friends did. I recall once she answered a question I no longer recall about her younger days, "Young girls would disappear in the woods when they went out at night." Of course when I answered, "Likely with young boys," a smack across my 'evil' mouth ended the conversation.

         It was the eyes that did it; that made her watch me and guard against the possible development of other traits.

         Vampires have a ring of a different color around their pupils. Think of somebody wearing soft tinted contact lenses that don't quite cover the eye, leaving an apparent ring or halo of the original color around the iris of the eyes. Not all people with such a ring (contacts or not) are vampires, but all vampires bear a ring of a different color in their eyes.

         Vampires have heightened sensory perception. Mortal children are, for the most part, born with heightened sensory perception, which they are taught at an early age to repress and, over time, unused leads to entropy. Vampires don't lose those abilities and, using them over time, strengthen them.

         Vampires have heightened visual acuity. They can see well by starlight, or even cloud-refracted starlight, or light reflected from another's eyes. That's what makes them sensitive to sunlight. Their keen visual acuity makes bright daylight appear as if they were seated in an interrogation chair with a floodlight in their eyes that does often lead to migraines. The discomfort causes them to seek the shade, even in the night. But they will not burn to a smoking pile of ashes when exposed to sunlight.

         A vampire's skin will not blister and peel off when exposed to sunlight. That's one symptom of porphyrria, a series of blood disorders, which, several centuries ago, when barbers were also physicians because they could use a knife on a person (is cutting hair really so far from cutting to remove a growth), could easily have been mis-diagnosed either unintentionally or to avoid vilification of the barber/physician when the boil cut with a the knife that also cut the barber-physician's daily meal became infected, or the untreated wound over a cut limb festered and introduced toxic bacteria for the hapless patient.

         A vampire does not sleep in a coffin, but would choose the darkest, quietest, most shaded room in the home for a bedroom; and yes, a vampire does need to sleep. Recall the heightened senses, which would keep the creature awake in bright moonlight. This myth most likely arose again in the middle ages, when people were sometimes buried alive when in a coma or suffering from narcolepsy and, when they woke, would scream and claw at their wooden coffin, knowing they were buried alive, and likely went mad before they were heard and 'rescued.'

         A vampire does eat and drink food, not just rarest of meat. The heightened senses allow the vampire to savor a juicy dessert or mellow libation and also keep the vampire from overindulging in food, being aware of his/her body. Now, the vampire does have a very slow metabolism, keeping him/her from aging as fast as we do. Some 'old ones' have seen generations come and go and think, if you have occasion to speak with them, what stories they could tell! Vampires can and do get sick, but not as often as, and they recover more quickly than, their non-vampiric counterparts.

         A vampire need not 'feast' of human blood nightly. Now, again, we must differentiating from the type of porphyrriac whose blood lacks a component called 'heme,' and can be treated chemically with same. Vampires actually are energized by whole blood and the energy expended in digesting the rare unaltered (uncooked) blood via muscles through their bodies gives their pale skin a rosy glow. Vampires can get the same 'rush' from animal blood and do not need to feast on unwilling mortals. In the past, with superstitions fostered by clergy and others wielding economic power, they likely found few willing to allow them a drink, and did take unwilling 'victims' to sate their hunger. Today, they find willing participants for an occasional 'drink' but are not likely to take them to the point of 'making' them vampires. It's competition for resources. Recall in Anne Rice's Vampire series when the vampires became a colony, gathered in close proximity, that's when they were vulnerable to attack from without and within, as resources became scarce for their larger numbers. There's truth in fiction there, if you work the logic of it.

         A vampire need not be burned and have his/her head removed to keep the vampire from rising from the dead, although a vampire can take damage to the heart because of the muscular metabolism of blood. The metabolism and muscular conduction of blood also affords the vampire a noticeable lack of reaction to pain and the ability to effect quick movements vertical or horizontal. Appearing to materialize and leap from shadows where he/she wasn't actually hiding would be a case in point.

         Vampires do not shape shift to bats and fly. Their desire to protect their eyes and senses by seeking out shadows and then moving from one shadow to another or from one place to another quickly, fed by generations of superstition, can make a non-vampire believe he or she sees such a phenomenon.

         Vampires do cast a shadow in mirrors, although I've heard they don't really care to see their own reflection as compared to that of non-vampiric mortals, thus they shun mirrors when possible.

         Vampires are not repelled by garlic any more than non-vampiric mortals. Due to their heightened senses, they will notice more keenly any pungent aroma. Consider, however, that unless thoroughly congested and nearly unable to breath, a close whiff of a clump of garlic will make anyone step back and flinch or at least wrinkle his/her nose.

         Well, either by maternal design or, more likely, simply because, I realized I was not a vampire or any super-human being. I don't have the keen eyesight (wear glasses), or athleticism. My childhood sunburns were likely due to the mere lack of SPF-exponential sun blocks over summer days reveling in warm sunlight out of doors. But, perhaps partly because of the long hours spent kneeling on a brick in punishment for being an 'evil' child, I welcomed contact from beings outside the mundane, and would like to meet a real vampire. I could learn so much from one of the old ones, especially.

         So, if you know a true biological vampire (not one purporting to vampirism by virtue of illness physical (porphyrria) or emotional/mental (depression, schizophrenia, for example), you'll see it most readily in the eyes. I've read that complimenting them might lead to open dialogue. Commenting on their 'vampiric eyes,' a compliment to flatter (yes, vampires have feelings, too) would afford them the opportunity to assess whether you are capable of intelligent discourse, even friendship. Remember, their heightened visual acuity and advanced sensory perception, when focused on you, can make you feel you are alone with them, even in a crowded room.

         I wish you only the best of meetings with these magnificent creatures of the night, both the old ones and those closer to our own generation, should you choose to encounter them. Until you chance to meet, by design or happenstance, I wish you joy in the stories of the old ones and the new tales you weave prosaic and poetic of these sensational creatures who reside in our world, though they not be fully of our mortal world.

         If you've a story ready to share with the outer world, consider the following publication, launching on-line September of this year, so plenty of time for them to read and respond to your submission, and I do know the editor to be insightful and creative ~ check out their guidelines