It’s 5 o’clock in the afternoon and you are lying on your pale grey velvet sofa. You went out to a meeting, and are still dressed up to the nines. An elegant gold tailored fitted silk dress, hair still cascading around your shoulders in delicate flowing waves and a perfect pale grey manicure that offsets the grey heavy silk woven stole your stylist chose for you. Everything arranged, perfect, held in place.

You pull yourself up off the sofa exhausted, walk into your bedroom and start taking off your clothes in front of your full-length mirror. As you pull the zipper down on your dress, the shoulder falls down and reveals a gash, seeping with blood. You pull in down further, and ask you suspected your heart falls out on the floor. It’s cut into chunks like beef you think. You just look at it, both sad and sickened at the same time. You pull your dress down further, and there are more gashes and cuts that have appeared since this morning you notice.

This is noting new, everyday they grow, seep and morph. Sometimes you wonder how you are still standing, working and moving through life. But no one else seems to notice, at least they never say anything if they do. Well not words of kindness or support anyway.

You notice things are starting to look a bit hazy, your eye must have fallen out. You look up with your right eye and sure enough your left eye is dangling out of it’s socket again, swinging around by your neck.

Of course all this hurts like hell, but you are so used to it now, that you are numb. You don’t even feel anything as more gashes appear or more bruises cover your body and face. It’s just a normal day.

You scoop your clothes up and throw them on your bed. Time for a red wine you think, at least then you can pick your heart up off the floor, pop your eye back in and the wine will hold it all together.

Your friend says she’s coming over at 6pm, so you’d best take the edge off the wounds with a glass of wine.

As soon as the drop of wine hits your tongue you immediately begin to feel better, more normal. A couple more sips and you can scoop up all your organs and push your wounds together and then no one will be any the wiser. 

It’s almost like the wine holds it all together, and then when it wears off, everything falls apart again. You are not really sure how you manage to keep it together in the day without wine, as somehow that seems to be okay while you have anything to do with work, but as soon as you stop doing anything, then your organs fall out, the wounds start gaping and bleeding and the pain and numbness envelopes you.

You’ve tried to talk about it, but you have never found anyone that understands, so you just march on, using wine as your medication.

You hear the buzzer. That must be your friend. You look around, just to check that the place looks reasonable. It looks the same as always. White, pristine, just like a hotel or a show flat.

You move to the door to open it. She comes into view. Hiya you both say and then kiss each other automatically on the cheek.

You let her in, offer her a seat on the grey velvet sofa and offer her a glass of wine. She accepts, and you both sit down and curl up. You in your PJ’s by now and her still in her work outfit.

She must have also been to a meeting you think, she’s all coiffured, like you were earlier.

She looks at you, as if examining you and says, “you look terrible”. Why don’t you go to the hairdresser, or something”?

You say nothing about your hair. It looked wonderful to you earlier, and it still looks the same now.

You look at her and say “what do you expect, I’m grieving”. This is a very difficult time for me”.

“Yes, she says”, but somehow you have to pull yourself together and make an effort”. If you look good you feel good”.

“Then she starts again with the same story, that she always loves repeating, just like a parrot.

“Back when I first met you, you were so determined, so fresh and you loved your work and now, the light has gone from your eyes. It’s really awful watching you scrabble around, not knowing which direction you are going in”.

You drink more wine, there’s more talking, You are not feeling good, but the more you drink, the better you seem to feel, so you open another bottle.

By the time she leaves you are exhausted, and you just want to dive into bed. You come back to the living room, to shut the balcony doors and there on your velvet grey sofa is a huge gecko.

You freeze, and a flash of fear washes over you. You pray that your heart doesn’t fall on the floor right now, as this huge gecko will surely eat it.

———————————-

“Hello Miss”, he says. “I don’t wish to startle you, but I was told that I should pop over for a friendly chat with you.”

“By who”?, you ask, in a fashion significantly more aggressively than you intended.

“Well I am not going to tell you who sent me, but I can tell you that they want to help you”, he says gently.

“You see your friend is not actually your friend and we thought that it was time that you were warned before there is more damage done. We can see that you are right at the end. Your heart is on the floor, the wounds in your body are becoming so large that your body won’t be able to take it, and the wine you are using as your make believe fascia is not going to work much longer. “

“Your wounds are growing too much, as you are letting the vampires feed off you, and it’s time that you stopped that. Otherwise it’s your death. We will reach a point, where there is no way back for you, and we need you for further missions.”

What on earth is this crazy gecko talking about you wonder.

“What missions”? you ask

“All will become clear, he says, but first we need to discuss the vampires, as I don’t think that you are fully aware, of what is going on.”

“Please do explain, you say to him, I know that I can’t take this any longer, I am hanging on by a thread.”

Grab some water, lie down and I will tell you a story, he says.

“A very long time ago before you were born, it was decided that you would come to the earth with certain gifts to help people.  The gifts are buried deep down in your soul, so that one day when the time is right, they will come out and show themselves.”

“You probably have a sense that they are there, but you don’t know what they are. Others are also aware that they are there, and they also do not know what they are, but it makes them afraid. Not because your gifts are dangerous or scary, quite the contrary. But somehow your difference, shows off their own inadequacies.”

“The others that get attracted to you are often vampires. They feel the energy you have and they want to feed off it. The easiest way for them to do that is to pick at wounds that you have. That’s why now in grief, they are buzzing around you like flies, trying to suck the power out of you.”

“Your wounds are huge right now, as you are dealing with death, so your light is shining out like a beacon. For those that don’t have their own light, that makes you very attractive as a source of energy.”

You look at him in shock. “Why would anyone do that? you ask ?

“Not all people in this world are good people, says the gecko. Some of them know no other way. They are damaged humans. Human vampires walking the earth, that feed off others light. “

‘But not only do they live off it, it also threatens them, so they want to suck up as much of it as they can, as they know that when you have this light it makes you different, special even.”

“They have many tactics of doing this, many. Mainly though belittlements. That is a favourite way, but they love to have a few games too, and so the altering of your reality is a favourite tool for fun for them. “

“Anyway, says the gecko, I can’t stay much longer, as I have others to see and attend to.”

“I will leave you with some guidance. Be the guardian of your own light. Protect it voraciously, separate yourself from anyone that makes you feel weak or bad about yourself and know that you are here for a mission, so you must get well.”

As soon as you start protecting your light and staying away from vampires, your wounds will begin to heal, you won’t even feel like drinking to hold your organs in place as they will be healed.

I will be back in 6 months to check on you. Please do as I say, as we need you to be ready for your missions.