"Ah´m a Mad Hatter with a Blastive Gun..." by Kim Schoonover (FreeBSD/i386 [moose] [ttyv5])

They say, "A moment of pain, an eternity of pleasure," or at least, something to that effect. Well, its a bloody LIE. Both parts are, in fact, or at least were for me. Getting bitten actually didn't hurt at all, really, especially in comparison to all the times my crazy friends and I all bit each other as a show of 'go die, but I suppose you're too lazy, so I'll just hurt you instead.'

No, the turning into a vampire, this was a clean bite, and anyone who's ever tried to cook and has had a baby brother would know that getting cut with a butcher knife is a lot less painful than having a hand slammed in a car door, causing two of the fingers to get ripped out of the sockets, taking three agonizing months to heal, and then still hurting every time writing is attempted, which, when one is still in school, just happens to be every day... And then, even as an undead, when the same thing happens AGAIN, why, it hurts just as much, and everyone just laughs, like its just fine. Even in this day and age, when the cars bloody fly.

And what about the 'pleasure' bit? I haven't been even remotely happy once, and while I never was a generally happy person, thats still saying something because it's been a bloody one thousand, six hundred years. All I've really been was bored out of my wits, just like that 'infinitely prolonged' guy in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, or whichever one that was in... its been so long I can't remember. Thing is, though, unlike that Wowbagger guy, I can't just go around insulting everyone, as much as I'd like to. See, there's a bloody ban on space travel. I even got out my bloody large hat and umbrella and engaged the station guy about it in nice, loud, ear-shattering debate, eventually resulting in my being thrown out of the damn station and nearly falling to pieces in the sun. That was when the bastard realized I was a vampire and peed his pants. Ha, serves him right...

But still, I don't understand it. We have the technology for space travel, folks have done it before, even going to other galaxies. I guess its just that everything has been made a figurative utopia on this stupid, bloody planet, so of course, why would anyone even want to leave? Note the word 'figurative' I used. Most of my kind has been wiped out, and although a lot of them probably deserved it, there were some nice people killed in that slaughter so many years ago after the Blastive Guns were invented. I think there were about two, if I remember correctly, and I probably don't, as in, most likely there was only one or I was imagining things. But see, I'm not the only one who finds this place a bloody, living hell, or whatever stupid figure of speech would apply in the case of someone who's already technically dead. A goodly chunk of the younger generation think the rules are stupid, too, and just want to get out there. They just can't. Well, couldn't.

Which, of course, led to the inventions of several different time machines, which work based on several, entirely different key principles, all around the bloody same time. Did I mention that the technology level is a bit high? We can bloody go back in time, fly around, blast vampires into globs of flesh of the sort previously found only in video games like Quake and Doom, both the thirds, that I liked when I was a kid, and yet we can't even fight a middling-level race of aliens that's been terrorizing the rest of the galaxy since a more powerful, good group fell to pieces for some long-forgotten reason.

Go figure.

That's why the space travel ban, of course. The bloody authorities are afraid. Honestly, they should be more afraid of Blastive-Gun-carrying maniacs who are using time travel along with the galactic drift principle to move to different and hopefully more interesting locations, if they're lucky. Also, chances are, they've probably already irrevocably changed history, and if they haven't yet, well, they will. Just give them time, and there's no lack of that. Not for any of us, not any more. Although that's irrelevant to the point of this... what was the point of this, anyway?

Well anyway, I have a Blastive Gun myself. I also have some pretty strong beliefs, which is probably fairly evident by now, and I intend to make a point. I'll just put on my nice, large hat, grab my umbrella, and Blastive my way to the bloody authorities in their nice, overly gardened governing estate and tell them what people think. Or something along those lines. Perhaps if that fails I'll just go back in time and see how much trouble I can stir up for everybody and even perhaps try to make things right. It'd be about time someone did something, regardless...

I suppose, in ending, that these writings shall be my testimony to the fact that I AM BLOODY PISSED OFF.

So toodles.