Edited for Public: Sorrow History

“The History of Sorrow”
By Jason Andrew

I do no longer remember the exact date of my birth, but I know the year was 1778.

My name was Louis de la Bourbon. I was the youngest son of a trivial baron barely worth the name. We were poor nobility, important only by our blood relations to the king of Spain.

I had many sisters and a few older brothers. We lived on a farm estate in the Paris countryside. As the youngest male, I was redundant. Mother loved music and so I was encouraged to play the Violin.

It was a pleasant childhood occasionally filled with the wonder of Paris or Versailles. When father visited court, I glimpsed wonderful costumes, music, and dancing. He often visited his patron. A dark haired woman in a nun’s wimple that seemed to move amongst the court with a visible power and yet few knew her name. My father only referred to her as Volonté, the word for desire.

I was brought to play before the patron a number of times. Each time she seemed to study my every moment.

And then when I was ten, she disappeared from the courts. Father was worried. The entire court seemed in a frenzy. It started with the servants. I realized that they refused to look me in the eyes. I was but a boy and so often ignored. I listened to them whisper. Father told me that soon things would turn quiet. That was the morning of Bastille Day.

The next few months all seem to have flowed together. Father was dead. My sisters had escaped to Spain. I was left to the mercy of the mob. My talent with the Violin spared my life. I played for my supper and my life on a nightly basis.

Dressed in rags, I was just another face in the mob. I played as my cousins and friends each were introduced Madame Guillotine. I played songs that encouraged the mob. I made them cry when someone I liked died. I made them laugh when those that had spat on my family for being poor had their encounter with Madame Guillotine.

As with all revolutions, this one began to eat its young and its old. Madame Guillotine continued her nightly service. Eventually, Napoleon came to power and Paris settled down.

I had learned to hide from the mob. To learn the secrets that could keep me safe. All young men were expected to join the military. I did not wish to wear the wars and go to war with the rest of Europe.

I escaped to Spain and my family. Volonté was waiting. She need a spy. Someone clever that could find out secrets for her. Someone that could help her in her nightly war. She bared to fangs and bid me to drink from her.

As a ghoul, I joined the Spanish army and fought against my countrymen. When they surrendered, I joined the underground in the name of my patron. She taught me how to hide in the shadows, how to find out the secrets that others wish hid. I learned how to fence, how to dance, how blend in with my surroundings. I learned how to kill.

I listened and learned. I brought news of troop movements and when asked, I killed for Spain. There was a five year war for independence against the French. I innovated killing from the shadows and then disappearing to a new level. Later, historians would define our tactics as the first guerrilla warfare.

I learned from Volonté the secrets of the night courts. When I knew too much, and yet too valuable to kill, Volonté embraced me. She brought me before the Sanctified and I confessed my sins. I did not feel the passion for worshiping the Virgin Mother or believe that vampires were truly damned. I had seen how to effect change. In my heart, I loved Lady Liberty.

After Napoleon's definite defeat at Waterloo in 1815, Ferdinand VII. was restored to the Spanish throne and reigned with rigid absolutism. When he changed the law of succession to the throne and his daughter Isabel was established as queen, his brother Charles rebelled against it and the War of Seven Years broke out. Economical recession and political instability were the consequences, Spain lost its colonies with the exceptions of Puerto Rico, Cuba and Philippines.

I was sent to Cuba to ensure that Spain did not lose ground. I was simply glad to be free and on my own.

For the next fifty years, I plied my craft for the crown and my sire. I became known as the Gentleman Reaper. I killed the Muslims and the Jews that were deemed a threat. Later, I killed the Protestants and revolutionaries. I grew tired killing in the name of the Sanctified.

The revolution of 1861 forced Isabel II to renounce the throne and the First Republic was proclaimed. My sire lost much of her influence and one night disappeared.

Cuba became a battleground between the Invictus and the Carthians. I was alone and had nothing left to lose. I had freedom. I joined with Papo and others to secure the freedom of Cuba. I joined the Carthian Movement and Lady Liberty was mine at last.

Later, I fought in the American Civil War. I wanted freedom for the slaves. My brothers in the movement joined me. I found friends and we stuck together. We started calling each other The New Flesh. http://carthian.cam-wiki.org/The_New_Flesh

For a time, we lived in New Orleans. We loved the soft sounds of the swamp, but there were too many established vampires in the area. We did what the mortals did and moved west to California and then to the long sleep.

I awoke in the 1930s surprised to see so many changes. I became fascinated with movies and stories. The memories of the battles and the blood merged together, and I hated them. I wanted the adventure and peace of these movies. I modeled my life after an actor, Errol Flynn. I even took his name for a time. All things seen to fall apart. Decay eats at any life, any time.

The New Flesh moved to Seattle to help the Wobblies. We supported their strike and then decided that we loved the Pacific Northwest. I thought that if the workers could united, perhaps one day kindred could as well. Would kindred always seek to bring each other down? Were we merely crabs in a bucket damned for eternity to pull each other down?

These questions plagued me for quite some time. In the 1960s, Jacques Derrida taught a few classes in Washington University. I attended and was facinated with his ideas about how things can be broken down. His lecture on “Structure, Sign, and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences” echoed in my mind for years later. I spoke to him afterwards. I didn’t wish to harm such a forward thinker, but I wanted to plumb his mind. I realized then that we need to change the way vampires thought before we could change the way they lived. Changing reality is very tricky. Do you serve someone’s freedom by stealing it? Freedom from thought? Freedom from responsibilities? Was it worth it?

I gave these questions much thought. Could you teach people that you didn’t have to do things the same way each time? Was there a better way? Was I just wasting time tilting against windmills? Was there a middle ground?

Seattle became uncomfortable after the turn of the century. Chancellor Goode invited us to move to Tacoma and so we set up our tea shop. Again, we felt the weight of the requiem on our souls and slept.

I dreamed of change. Of freedom. Of breaking down old ways.

When we awoke three years later, everything had changed. Despite the fear of dark times coming, the mortals were fresh with hope. A black man was running for the President of the United States. Something that had seemed impossible just a few decades before. It felt like people were itching for change. Would this desire echo in the vampires?

The New Flesh felt a new excitement in life and became determined to refresh the Carthian movement. I decided that I would have to make a more active effort to see if this change could occur.