The Point is Moot

“Vampires sleep like the dead,” I observed in a whisper.

“They are dead,” my friend corrected without modulating his voice.

“Shh,” I said, putting my finger to my mouth. We moved out of the chamber and closed the door. With a sigh, I said, “They’re not dead, they’re undead.”

“Undead isn’t a category separate from either the dead or the living. So,” he continued, though I had stopped listening, “they are both dead and alive synchronously.”

“All I said,” we were going up the stairs now, “was that they slept like the dead, and you’re saying they are dead, so doesn’t that prove my point?”

“No!” he groaned. “A dead thing can’t be like a dead thing. A thing can’t be a simile for itself. I would hazard you couldn’t use a metaphor either.”

“Watch me,” I said, and was silent.

We walked along the parapet awhile until he finally asked me, “Do you know what a metaphor is?” I could hear a note of worry growing in his voice.

Smiling up at him, I said, “Of course,” and was silent again.

“Give me an example,” he said.

“Vampires sleep like the dead,” I replied after a pause.

He groaned again.

“What, you don’t like it?”

“A metaphor,” he began, and then gave up. “Never mind.”

We stopped and gazed out at the sun rising over the ravine, watching the glistening river below.

“What you said earlier,” I started after we continued our walk, “about vampires being both alive and dead?”

“Yes?”

“Well, I think you’re wrong.”

“Hmm?”

“I think they are their own category. So, I can use a medi-four on them if I want.”

“And how do you figure that?” he asked.

“Cause,” I replied, opening up my watch, “in about ten seconds they will be dead, good and proper.”

“Hmm,” he hummed, scratching his chin. “You have a point. Should we run?”

“Yes.”

We started sprinting toward the balloon as the whole castle shook beneath us.

Climbing up the rope-ladder, I heard him calling up after me, “I think—” but his words were lost in the wind.