COVID-19 Vampire’s Diary

Kelley Greene
3 min readOct 31, 2020

Dear Die-ary,

This veek sucked, again. I can’t believe it’s Halloveen and ve’re still stuck inside our mausoleum. October is the most important month of the year, and yet, here ve are, qvarantined. Just drive a vooden stake through my heart, vhy don’t you?

Vlad has been classified as an essential vurker again this month, so he’s out in public, haunting the neighborhood. But, like, how is he supposed to terrify small humans vhen he’s vearing a mask, for Molag Bal’s sake? He asked me to slice two small holes for his fangs, but it just isn’t safe. I can’t have him catching some disgusting human disease and becoming more undead. He’s 600 years old. If that’s not a comorbidity, I don’t know vhat is.

I vas fine vhen ve stayed in through spring and summer. There’s too much sunlight during those seasons, so I can deal vith spending most of my time hibernating in the coffin through them. But now it’s fall. Fall! A-ha-ha. I should be out haunting, victim picking (high school parties are the best victim patches this time of year), and drinking PSLs (platelet-spiced lattes) all night long!

Honestly, I vould kill for a midnight brunch vith my brood. I vant a blood-y mary, a vhite blood cell toast, and to feel normal again. Instead I’m stuck eating bagged, donated meals from the blood bank. Before Covid, I vould have considered myself a total Type A. These days I’m just taking vhatever I can get.

Remote vurk has been a total daymare. It’s a full night of Zoom meetings now, and ve’re required to turn our cameras on, even though there’s nothing to see! I’m sure I look like a mess but fortunately there’s no vay for any of us to know. They vant us to make more sales, but who needs a new cloak this year vhen ve can just sit around comfortably in sveatpants all night?

And then after vurk I can’t even get a good day’s sleep. For the first time ever, my coffin feels almost claustrophobic, but I have to be in before dawn. I just vant to know vhen ve vill be able to go outside again. I haven’t really been vatching the news, either, but I do try to catch an update from Dr. Ouchi vhen I can.

Truly the only thing keeping me going right now are the few things I started earlier this year — my plasmadough starter and my nightshade garden. Vith all this extra time I have been able to try baking, and I am just about to perfect my Transylvanian loaf. And I finally have some time to focus on my plants and they are all looking pleasantly dead, from vhat I can tell in the dark.

I just don’t know vhat to do given that ve’re unable to enjoy the best holiday of the year. At this point I’m very tempted to climb into my coffin and rest for a few hundred years.

-The Countess

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Kelley Greene

Writer and performer based in Chicago. Sentient wheel of cheese, found online at kelleygreene.pizza or Twitter/Instagram @kelleygreene