“One reason I don’t drink is that I want to know when I am having a good time.”

- Nancy Astor

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It’s a burning feeling, screaming through collapsing veins and the woman is shaking as muscles roar for oxygen. Tired she thinks, so tired and hungry. She has held off for so long, starved herself for this, so that like a man who has not eaten for days will think a bread crust is a feast. Her pickings are not slim, and she could feast, truly, if she so wished, but she does not.

A man walks by her, barely noticing her. Hands find their way around his shoulders without her notice, or her consent, and she takes a moment to ponder this and then her teeth are in his neck and his blood is in her mouth; her veins. Suddenly she can hear the drum of blood in her ears and her muscles sing. His heart is faltering now, while hers grows stronger, and he is shaking. The man has traded his life for hers; her death for his.

Dead, the man falls and the woman screams, shrieks like a new baby. Today she has a new life and while it is not her own, she will welcome it with the cries of birth. She came into this life screaming. This life is like a new coat, placed neatly over her shoulders, soon though she’ll be clutching and rags and she’ll scream again for a new life.

As she stops screaming she looks the man over; smiles.

A man died for her today; she dumped him in a ditch.

Another will die for her tomorrow; she’ll dump him in a ditch too. Those who are truly dead don’t care where they rest.