A NOTE
480 Words
A NOTE
I know that most who pick up this volume will assume it a work of fiction, these few words from me nothing more than an artistic flourish of verisimilitude. Very well; the topics upon which I touch are fantastical and have been so long relegated to the fiction shelves of libraries and bookshops that I can hardly lay blame on that well-read bookworm whose own expertise condemns him to misinformation. There is no shame in fiction, but there is much in treating as fantasy that which ought to be approached with the intensity of scientific enquiry.
The pursuit and destruction of evil never has been nor ever will be a simple task, and is not one to be undertaken lightly.
And monsters, I fear, are not the worst of it.
There is no supernatural horror so terrible as the things we human beings do to one another.
In 1894, six friends chased a monster across Europe. That particular supernatural horror was a terrible thing. They confronted and killed it, and none of them went home whole. One of them did not go home at all. But the rest limped back to England, drew the pieces of their lives back together, and healed.
Twenty years later, the mouth of Hell opened in Flanders fields, and its fires razed a generation. It could not be confronted. It could not be killed. It could only be fed, and we let the beast gorge. Few came limping home. Fewer healed.
Given the choice between Count Dracula and mustard gas, I would always choose the former. Always.
MSvH
In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
-Lieutenant Colonel John McRae
3 May, 1915
These last years have seen a fearsome madness descend across the West, a rain of blood that must by its nature infect the minds of all on whom it falls, for it is impossible that a feeling human should witness such chaos and slaughter and retain his reason intact. Where first this unbalance was considered a moral failing, we identify it now as ‘shell shock’ and would treat its sufferers more kindly. Sadly, our knowledge lags behind our needs, and of those whom medicine knows not yet how to help, many inevitably will be lost to suicide.
-Fr. Josephus van Helsing, OSB
De Vampiris Fortuitis et Tempore Praesenti
1920
Translation by M. van Helsing
- Writer
