We Are All Vampires
XV — The Unsuccessful, Ugly and Obnoxious Vampire
← Karl Swainston / We Are All Vampires
An ugly, obnoxious, rude, and uncouth vampire cannot exist in society for long.
They only repulse their victims and possess zero chance of feeding on their positive energies.
This unfortunate vampire, and there are many of them, almost always fails at the outset of its vampiric journey.
Their rage and annoyance at not achieving their ambition readily lead them into a life of crime. Prisons and other penal institutions are crowded with these ill-charmed vampires. They are all incarcerated because of vicious and diabolical crimes.
These are the ugly generation of failing vampires. From early childhood, these vampires faced continual rejection when they tried to feed on the positive energy of others. Their victims can see them a mile off. They repulse and reject them quite easily.
Since vampires are born vampires, and ugly vampires are born ugly vampires, the ugly vampire, from an early age, will perpetrate acts of truancy and violence to their peers and entertain all manner of robbery. They are not bothered about the consequences of being caught.
When the headteacher stands in front of one of these ugly vampires, berating the child for stealing, violence, or playing truancy, the headteacher is appalled by the child’s lack of guilt and compassion.
Even more disturbing is the look of mockery the little vampire has as it stares hard at the chastising headteacher. The headteacher can do as he likes in this situation, but the ugly vampire will not be bothered or threatened. The little vampire will leave the office and go on to commit the same transgressions.
If the ugly vampire has a degree of stature about them, it will invariably become the nasty bully.
The playground is a candy ground for the vampiric bully. They will control all the weaker kids in the playground and extract all manner of ‘freebies’ from them.
The ugly vampire will run a cartel of sweets and other confectionery items in early childhood, moving on to cigarettes and soft narcotics in its teenage years.
When the vampiric bully is either unceremoniously expelled from or leaves school, it is already a hardened criminal.
The vampire does not learn the game of crime. They are engines of crime.
Once the ugly vampire has left education, there are two options ahead of it: crime and crime.
A few of the ugly vampires will go on to be successful gangsters or drug dealers, but most of them will gravitate to a life of petty crime and drugs.
Both will go to prison. Both will constantly serve time. Fortune is not on their side. Misfortune, treachery at the hands of others, or simple, bad mistakes will put these career criminals and ugly vampires back behind bars.
This ugly vampire readily becomes debilitated by rejection, which is intolerable for the vampire because of the grandiose and exaggerated image they have of themselves. In a rage, the vampire lashes out, invariably involving some form of crime. It may start as a slap from the vampire in childhood to a hammer attack or murder in adulthood.
The cause is always the same: pure mortification and shame at their circumstance.
Although the ugly vampire will not recognise shame, let alone admit they have it, they will exude it.
Shame is a public emotion for all to see. Most normal people enduring shame or mortification will seek out some crevice or rock and hide under it until the emotion has passed by the society. The ugly vampire will entertain no such action. It will be determined to find the person(s) guilty of humiliating them and deliver such punishment as the ugly vampire deems fit.
The ugly vampire is above any conceivable sense of guilt. There is no way this creature would accept any responsibility that its actions have led to failure.
Obnoxious vampires can be extremely convincing in this denial because they believe implicitly and unreservedly that they are not at fault. Every ounce of energy within the ugly vampire contributes to this cause.
Even when the facts are overwhelming that the ugly vampire is the cause of the failure, the vampire will not admit the fact. They will leave the occasion with only the view that they are the victim. Such is the warped certainty of the ugly vampire’s mind.
Although ugly and successful vampires can lead very different lives, they often possess and demonstrate the same vampiric characteristics. The ugly and repulsive vampires operate in all careers of life.
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About Karl Swainston
Karl Swainston is a writer and storyteller whose work is forged from a life lived across the North of England and far beyond. Growing up on a Leeds council estate in the 1960s, Karl's journey was anything but linear. By the age of thirty, he had already lived a dozen lives: from the rigors of grammar school to a degree in Latin, a stint as a fishmonger, a period of discovery living in Marseille, and a return to the hustle of London. Whether working as a postman, a builder, or competing as a county-level chess player, he was, above all, an avid reader—constantly documenting the world around him. This restless spirit continued into his professional life. Karl later taught in Bradford, where he ran a specialist unit for 244 of the most excluded students from across the region—young people whom even the local Pupil Referral Units could not accommodate. Working alongside his old friend Malcolm, Karl spent his days navigating the volatility of Bradford's most aggressive and dysfunctional teenagers. Throughout his life, Karl has been an avid runner and has always shared his home with a rotating cast of beloved dogs and cats—companions who have been constant witnesses to his work. As a writer, Karl's range is as expansive as his history. He works across a wide breadth of genres, including fiction and short stories, autobiography and memoir, biography, non-fiction, and metaphysical writing, as well as providing sharp commentary, opinion, analysis, and essays. Whether writing about his years managing the Harrogate Arms or offering insights from his current adopted home in South East India, where he lives in a simple village with his dog, Bambi, Karl's voice reflects the full, untidy, and deeply human breadth of life. He continues to draw on the rich, decades-long tapestry of his experiences to tell stories that matter, proving that no matter where you live, the human story remains the same.
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