10
I didn't sleep that night after I got back home. I had eaten at the bonfire, so all I had to do was change and then I began work. I sat at the island in the kitchen and turned on my laptop. The wallpaper was a picture of Ed and me taken three days before he went to China. Every time I saw it I wanted to cry , but I never did, I'm not sure why I didn't but I just didn't. But now I can't afford to cry. I had to find some answers. If I was to interrogate Sue Clearwater on a topic she knew and loved, I had to educate myself to be able to ask the appropriate questions, and not look like a pure deranged buffoon. I knew Sue was going to stay with Billy for at least the next whole month. So I had time and I was going to make good use of it.
I went online and browsed the net. I typed the word 'vampire' (that blood drinking part made me think that the Shashwat were a kind of vampire) into Google, and was shocked.
187, 000, 000 results! Seriously?! This was a bloody bottomless ocean and I was hoping for a kiddy pool of fundamentals. How was I supposed to find fundamental knowledge here?
I sat dazed for a while. Then I turn to the one site that had so far never let me down: Wikipedia. Their article on vampires was very long and quite informative. Then I browsed through the list and selected a few other sites. Each site had something different to say. Some sites analyzed vampires on the basis of some fiction books. Some were an utter waste of time. Some debunked the vampire lore in a step-by-step, methodical manner.
Many of the sites like squidoo, crystalinks, tripod, thinkquest, and a few others held some actual information. They gave me details about the myths and legends related to vampires that are popularly believed. These sites even went on to clarify some common misnomer that people of the olden days had about diseases like porphyria, tuberculosis, etc.
I read and read and read. There were sites that explained the background of Vlad Tepes, AKA Dracula; there were blogs that explained the biblical origins of vampires, like with Cain and Lilith; there were sites that even mentioned some pagan and pre-Christian lore about vampires. There was one site, VampiresAZ, which true to its name listed the different names and traits of vampires from around the world from A to Z.
However, I didn't find Sue's story of the Shashwat anywhere. Yes there were some elements of the story scattered about in many of the legends I found and read, but that very one was nowhere to be found. At one point I wondered if Sue had made it up for the night's story-telling session. But then I discarded that idea and plunged into my online research again.
There was just so much stuff on the net that I totally lost track of the time. I read through the night and didn't even realize when dawn had broken and when the sun had risen. It was when that Newton kid from next door blasted on his car stereo as he pulled out the driveway to go to school, that my concentration broke.
I almost jumped out of my skin and nearly fell off the chair when this happened. And then I looked around as if I was seeing my own kitchen for the first time, because it was then that I realized what I had done. I had sat there at the kitchen island, in my PJ's, poring over the laptop and doing 'research' and making notes about vampires. All through the night. I could almost here what my sister and sister-in-law would say if they heard this. I made a mental note never to tell them.
As I made and ate breakfast, I pondered over what I had done and was still planning to continue to do. I had to know as much as I could about these beings that could alternately be called Vampyre, Upier, Adze, Strigoi, Nosferatu, Brahmaparush,Doppelsauger, Kuang-shi, Lobishomen, Shashwat, and God knew what else. The list goes on.
When I finished eating and had cleared away the bowl and spoon, I brewed myself a strong pot of coffee, cleared the next few days for no interruptions and got to 'researching' again. It was three more days of non-stop researching, very little sleep, plenty of strong coffee and no contact with anyone at all that I was finally satisfied with all that I had learned.
I went through all my notes and finally declared myself fit to meet Dr. Sue Clearwater.
Author's Note: i know i was away for a long time. but i'm back now.
and i will not disappear again now.
so hope you enjoy. ;D