Personality
Ezra always leaves a first impression of being elsewhere – like there's something else on his mind - when around other people. If you do get him to snap out of it what you find is an inquisitive mind, with a sort of detachment from the self. He speaks in carefully constructed sentences, never interrupting, listening intensely and responding slowly but steadily like he's weighing his words before uttering them.
Description
Ezra stands about 6 feet 1 inch tall with a dark head of hair kept very short and in precise angles, making his features even more angular than they were already. His eyes is a mix of blue and turquoise, seemingly always unfocused. He looks to be in his early 30'ies, and dresses plainly in earthen or dark tones. He wears a thin gold necklace with something attached to it, but its never seen other than from the small shapes it leaves on his shirt.
Diary
18th of November 2011
How to start a diary, that is the question. Well... i guess i should start by saying that I keep this because Ellie thought i should, so i could keep track of my personal studies too. She has such great ideas, but i rarely listen to her. I guess thats why I didn't start until now. I was in her bed the other night, just watching her sleep and thinking. I always think better when I'm with her, I don't know why. I was thinking about how this all got started.
It was three years ago that night when i met Dom the first time. He and I had been exchanging letters for almost 6 months on the study of the effect of running water as a means of calming the nerves of people who had suffered burn injuries. It was a minor study sure, but one I had read a facinating article on the year before. Id written the author - Dominic – and asked some questions id found myself with after reading his article. He came to my office at the faculty, that evening, and we had tea while talking at length about the progress of his studies. He then started asking questions about me, mostly about my work but also some personal stuff. I got the wrong impression I guess and told him I was happily married – though happily i guess was a stretch since my wife had just filed for divorce that week – and he just laughed and told me he knew all scholars were married to their work and not to worry.
It was strange, because that was exactly what my wife had told me when we were separated. I had just put out son Tobias to bed, and come downstairs to continue my reading, when Irina said we had to talk. I can still hear her sometimes when i close my eyes to sleep. The accusing tone, and tears running down her cheeks. It was nothing id not heard her say before, but there was something in that tone that told me this was final. I moved out that weekend, and lived for a couple of weeks at the holiday inn. I got a small apartment near the faculty and that was that. I couldn't really bring myself to be angry with Irina, because I knew she deserved better. Someone attentive, someone who would slip into bed with her to sleep, not read until late at night. I had Toby every other weekend and took him to school whenever I could, but we were a split family.
I signed the divorce papers after Dom left late that night, if only to give Irina the closure she needed to move on and find the man she deserved.
23th of November 2011
I went over to Ellie's tonight to have a look at her computer before she got home. She doesn't like to ask, but i overheard her talking to someone from tech support about her computer at home not working right and I thought i knew what the problem was. I let myself in the back door using the key under the small willow tree she has potted on the porch, though i put the key back afterwards as she'd said to do. If anything, Irina at least taught me to pay more attention to women. “Toilet seats and garbage Ezra, the two things you always forget” is what she always said. Rocky was there, Ellie's cat. He doesn't like me very much and always hisses at me when i come over, but he stays away and doesn't attack or anything. I booted up the computer, a wretched old thing she got from work, and began running a few programs i brought with me. By the time she came home I had just shut down the computer, now virus and spyware free, and was flipping through one of her many books on how to live a “clean” life. Rocky hurried out when she opened the door, but Ellie just laughed at the little beast. We watched some television while she cooked up some dinner, and it all reminded me very much of the good old days when it was just Irina, me and a big pot of macaroni.
The divorce was quick and painless. Irina got the house and I didn't put up a fight. I wanted her and Toby to be secure, and not have to start looking for a new home. Meanwhile Dom and I were meeting more, often debating various subjects until the wee hours of the morning. Our debates had become more focused on our existence, and on the trials we all go through in life. I had told him about my divorce, and he'd listened. We talked about how people can grow apart and how we sometimes want to see things in other people that are just not there, and how that can lead to both heartache and depression. It was about that time he began showing up unannounced, and sometimes seemingly out of the blue in places I wouldn't expect him to. Sometimes at my apartment, sometimes when i stopped in at the rare books store. One night as I had just parked outside my apartment he was suddenly in the backseat of my car. I only saw him briefly before the bag went over my head, and heard him say it was time for the final testing.
I awoke to find myself hanging from chains, the pain in my wrists telling me id been hanging there for some time. Dom was there, in the shadows, but there. I asked him what was going on, but he didn't answer. Then he started asking me questions. Questions we'd discussed for the past 5 months, and questions that seemed out of place. I didnt know what was going on, but I had the feeling that if i answered any of them wrong he'd kill me. Turned out I was wrong. The fact was that if i'd answered any of them wrong he'd have let me live, and I would have never seen him again. “Nothing is ever what you think it is, and everything happens precisely like you know it will”. Those were the last words he told me before he took my life.
Ellie and I sat watching TV for a while, and then she got bored and just put on some music. I wasn't really watching it anyway, so it didn't bother me. She turned on her computer to find it working perfectly again, and seemed puzzled at that. I didn't tell her I fixed it for her, there was no need to. When you do something for someone you love, there is no need to tell them you did it or why you did it. They just instinctively understand. That's us.
25th of November 2011
I was speaking with the head of the humanist department over at Sacramento State. I know quite a few of the professors over at the school from my time there, and I was offered a small researcher position. It's not a lot of money, but they can work around my “day job” as i put it. Its 4 hours at night doing research and grading papers for the professors. Its an unofficial position of cause, but it allows him to focus on his other affairs. And by affairs i mean the coeds he's screwing around with. I guess he gave me the job just to make sure i didn't talk, after i saw him dropping off one of them at the dorms last week. I never said a thing to him about it though, but i guess he must have seen me. I was going to tell Ellie about it tonight, but she wasn't home. I guess she went to her friends birthday party after all. It got me thinking about Toby's last birthday party.
It was about a month after my Embrace, and I was still getting the hang of everything. Dom had left me on my own that night to go see someone, and I was sitting around in my room waiting for him to return. I was never any good with dates, but i always remembered Toby's birthday. He must have been wondering where I was. It had been a month since id seen him, or spoken to Irina. Dom had told me to stay put but against his better judgement I went anyway. I sat in the car outside the house and looked at them watching movies and eating candy. There was a guy there. Dan I think his name was. I'd met him once when i picked up Toby, and we'd spoken briefly. He introduced himself as Irina's boyfriend, and I was happy for them. At least i tried to be. I snuck up to the one of the living room windows and pried it slightly open - just like Dom had taught me. I could smell them, and it made me smile. I could smell my little boy even from where I was sitting under the window. Dom had told me not to go talk to them, and that they were no longer part of my life. But surely I could just sit there for a little bit. I took out the computer game i picked up at the store on the way here, and looked at it. I couldn't give Toby his present in person, but there was no harm in leaving it under his pillow right? I snuck around the back to his bedroom, and let myself in through the window. It wasn't hard, and i remember thinking I should probably tell them to secure the house better. I remember hearing footsteps outside in the hallway, and suddenly feeling hungrier than ever before. Then i was sitting in the car again, in the passenger seat. Dom was driving the car, and i could see he wanted to be angry with me but something made him hold it back. He started talking, and at first i wasn't really hearing him. He was talking about the beast. He'd told me about it several times for the past month, but somehow it felt more real now. It was the hunger I realized, that was the beast. I'd come close to the beast I knew, and I was happy Dom had been there to stop me. It wasn't until later that month I realized that he'd been too late, and that i'd killed all of them. Even my little Tobias. I didn't know how to feel at first, but then it all came rushing in.. first the pain, then the sorrow and then Rage. Simply blind rage. That was my second experience with the beast.
I left the roses id bought for Ellie sitting on her doorstep, so she'd know I was there. I didn't leave a card, because i wanted to tell her the news in person. She'd be so thrilled, she always was when something good happened.
28th of November 2011
I was gonna tell Ellie tonight. I was standing outside her door for an hour, trying to get up the courage to knock on the door but it never came. I could see her inside, working on her computer. I went in the kitchen door as usual, and found Rocky eating his dinner. The fuzzball hissed as usual, so i left the door slightly open for him to exit through. She was working on some thing that looked like a finance report, probably something from her work.
She was so beautiful as she sat there, the small wrinkles on her brow as she read the statements in front of her. It was one of the things i liked about her the first time i saw her at the yoga place down town. I usually stay in the background, following the class but not interrupting it. I don't have the dexterity of some of the other people there, or the form. But it helps me control the beast i find, like meditation and centering myself does. I started doing it after my first encounters with the beast, while i wandered. At first I was just trying it out to see if it would work, since the anger management class had come up short. Platitudes and well wishing wasn't really gonna cut it when it came to the beast, its not like its something you can back down from once it grips you. And you cant reason with it, because its really not you. Anyway, the Yoga seemed to calm me. Thats also how i heard of the meditation class, and Tai Chi. Self-defence class was more of an accident, but it was informative. Though you gotta ask yourself just how effective macing an elder and kicking him in the groin is going to be when he's got you by the throat. Either way i picked up a free can of mace from the women's shelter that night, just in case.
I guess my time wandering can be best characterized as a search. Dom had some basic answers, but most of them centered around the needs of our kind. What i was looking for was how to beat it, not how to deal with it. Dealing with the beast seems so temporary, and what i needed – what i need – is something more final. The hunger and the hunt are both tied to the beast. I see it lurking there in the shadows, and sometimes out of the corner of my eye its like its right there. At first i didn't now what i was looking for really, but my search soon became specific. I heard the rumors of others being able to sustain the beast with only small amounts of blood, and shrugging off the taint that comes with our existence, and i was surprised to learn that they called themselves “The order of Dracula”. The more I learned, the less surprised i was though. It was in Seattle, about a month ago, i decided to go looking for these Dragons. I am still looking, but I was told that might be the wrong way of going about it. I might be better off writing some papers on my own experience with the beast, or conducting an experiment on it. Though the last part might be too dangerous.
Ellie shivered, and got up. I'd left the door open, and hadn't noticed the drop in temperature. As she closed the door, looking outside to see what had caused it to open, i made the decision to sate my hunger like i'd intended to do the first night i saw her. After all, the beast in me just see's food when it see's her, and our relationship would never work anyway. She's never even seen me.
Draft this Post
