E. U. comes to Transylvania
(a vampire's perspective)
Romania is scheduled to join the European Union in 2007. That seems to be a settled issue now. You may wander why is it that an eight hundred years old creature like me is interested in the subject, but, trust me, this affects us all. As you may know, Transylvania (my homeland, that is) is part of Romania, so I keep an eye, these days, not only to what happens in our capital, Bucharest, but on Brussels and Strasbourg, as well.
I must say, till now I hailed the major achievements of the modern world: greater food supply for me because humans (living ones) are in more abundance; a more varied menu, with all these traveling facilities; bigger cities, which offer more hiding places for those with… well… alternative lifestyles, like me, and much, much more. The best thing about the modern world was, till now at least, the advent of the modern bureaucratic state. You have to love it! Well, it’s true that those bloodsucking parasites don’t have the style and the pedigree of the good old vampires like myself, but we have always (till now) worked together smoothly, especially on the problem of those damn vampire hunters. Damn their kind!!!
If you think that a place like Transylvania is a vampire h(e)aven, think again! It isn’t. And there’s nothing strange about this: where you have vampires, you’ll got your vampire hunters too. The problem is that before the modern age this despicable kind roamed free over the land, hired by villages or landlords and they did their job unchecked and with an eye only on the prize. Fortunately, this was to change: just when modern technology seemed to give them an edge over us, the modern state stepped in. Of course, it did not intervene to help us, but the (living) people from my kin. The hunters were unionized, regulated, taxed – all for their benefit. They got specific regulations as to their equipment and weaponry. They got training schools and a single national licensing board that controlled who gets the permit and who doesn’t. We talk about Eastern Europe, so don’t even start me on the corruption that came along with all this. But it was all for the better: for the first time in history, the hunters left us relatively alone and those who bothered us were ill prepared. We finally got a coherent bureaucracy to pay off of our back. So, in those times it was easy life. You paid the right guy or guys and nobody bothered you. If someone bothered you, however, a board of professional hunters found some problems with his/her permit, gear, past assignments, behavior… or you name it.
Yeah… those were the days… A decent vampire could make a peaceful living.
And then it got even better. The old interwar Romanian democracy and the post war communism faded into history and the contemporary new Romanian democracy came with new opportunities for my kind and me. From the west we learned of non-discrimination on the basis of race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, age and all this. It didn’t take us much time to realize that this is not about individual freedom/responsibility, but about a collective identity to shelter you and to hide behind. Who would need more a hiding place than a vampire? And if this hiding place is my own identity… what could be easier? So we started to organize and to protest against the societal bias that surrounds us simply because we happen to be on the other side of life. Society owes us much for past persecutions. We managed to obtain the ban of “Dracula” and other such hate filled literature, product of our pro-living biased society, that forgets the times of old, when living and vampires lived in peace and harmony over the face of this wonderful green planet. Also we campaigned successfully among the younger generations with our long experience in being in communion with our more instinctive, more natural side. Instincts are what take you back to your Nature. They liberate you from the tyranny of reason and coherence. You have to give in to your most basic urgings and avoid all responsibility for what you do, by invoking who you feel you are. This way you’ll be authentic and original, as all the others.
So, yes, I like the modern world. Or, at least I used to like it. Till now. The same bureaucrats that helped us before seem to have gone totally crazy, since they have to implement the new EU regulations. Now that we, vampires, became well-respected members of the society they got the brilliant idea to regulate our affaires. For eight hundred years I sucked blood and I’m damn good at it. What does a lousy bureaucrat know about it?! Now they have a feeding hygiene bill for vampires, that spells you in details how much blood you may suck out of a human during one lunch and how many times you’re allowed to attack him/her. All these adjusted to the age and weight of the victims. We are prescribed regular medical consultations for receiving the “sucking permit” from some dilettante licensing board. You have strict regulation as to the teeth hygiene and so forth.
Sometimes I think about becoming libertarian and kick some bureaucrat ass. But I cannot do that anymore: I have profited already a lot from them, and I will lose what I have already gained. So I’ll shut up and go along quietly …hoping they will not remember us at the next sessions of the legislature.
I must say, till now I hailed the major achievements of the modern world: greater food supply for me because humans (living ones) are in more abundance; a more varied menu, with all these traveling facilities; bigger cities, which offer more hiding places for those with… well… alternative lifestyles, like me, and much, much more. The best thing about the modern world was, till now at least, the advent of the modern bureaucratic state. You have to love it! Well, it’s true that those bloodsucking parasites don’t have the style and the pedigree of the good old vampires like myself, but we have always (till now) worked together smoothly, especially on the problem of those damn vampire hunters. Damn their kind!!!
If you think that a place like Transylvania is a vampire h(e)aven, think again! It isn’t. And there’s nothing strange about this: where you have vampires, you’ll got your vampire hunters too. The problem is that before the modern age this despicable kind roamed free over the land, hired by villages or landlords and they did their job unchecked and with an eye only on the prize. Fortunately, this was to change: just when modern technology seemed to give them an edge over us, the modern state stepped in. Of course, it did not intervene to help us, but the (living) people from my kin. The hunters were unionized, regulated, taxed – all for their benefit. They got specific regulations as to their equipment and weaponry. They got training schools and a single national licensing board that controlled who gets the permit and who doesn’t. We talk about Eastern Europe, so don’t even start me on the corruption that came along with all this. But it was all for the better: for the first time in history, the hunters left us relatively alone and those who bothered us were ill prepared. We finally got a coherent bureaucracy to pay off of our back. So, in those times it was easy life. You paid the right guy or guys and nobody bothered you. If someone bothered you, however, a board of professional hunters found some problems with his/her permit, gear, past assignments, behavior… or you name it.
Yeah… those were the days… A decent vampire could make a peaceful living.
And then it got even better. The old interwar Romanian democracy and the post war communism faded into history and the contemporary new Romanian democracy came with new opportunities for my kind and me. From the west we learned of non-discrimination on the basis of race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, age and all this. It didn’t take us much time to realize that this is not about individual freedom/responsibility, but about a collective identity to shelter you and to hide behind. Who would need more a hiding place than a vampire? And if this hiding place is my own identity… what could be easier? So we started to organize and to protest against the societal bias that surrounds us simply because we happen to be on the other side of life. Society owes us much for past persecutions. We managed to obtain the ban of “Dracula” and other such hate filled literature, product of our pro-living biased society, that forgets the times of old, when living and vampires lived in peace and harmony over the face of this wonderful green planet. Also we campaigned successfully among the younger generations with our long experience in being in communion with our more instinctive, more natural side. Instincts are what take you back to your Nature. They liberate you from the tyranny of reason and coherence. You have to give in to your most basic urgings and avoid all responsibility for what you do, by invoking who you feel you are. This way you’ll be authentic and original, as all the others.
So, yes, I like the modern world. Or, at least I used to like it. Till now. The same bureaucrats that helped us before seem to have gone totally crazy, since they have to implement the new EU regulations. Now that we, vampires, became well-respected members of the society they got the brilliant idea to regulate our affaires. For eight hundred years I sucked blood and I’m damn good at it. What does a lousy bureaucrat know about it?! Now they have a feeding hygiene bill for vampires, that spells you in details how much blood you may suck out of a human during one lunch and how many times you’re allowed to attack him/her. All these adjusted to the age and weight of the victims. We are prescribed regular medical consultations for receiving the “sucking permit” from some dilettante licensing board. You have strict regulation as to the teeth hygiene and so forth.
Sometimes I think about becoming libertarian and kick some bureaucrat ass. But I cannot do that anymore: I have profited already a lot from them, and I will lose what I have already gained. So I’ll shut up and go along quietly …hoping they will not remember us at the next sessions of the legislature.
I just feel like a sucker now.
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