“Welcome to Mr. Clown’s Coffin Collection. Collectable coffins for the current count. Why stay in that drab old pine box you were buried in? I don’t think any of you were pharaohs, now? Come, try my deluxe double. No more trouble closing the lid when you bring a little snack to bed with you. This box will fit you and whatever helpless virgin you’ve hypnotized, and maybe her sister too if she’s skinny enough. Come, sir! You have a mighty bite, I can see. With our proprietary linings, you don’t have to sacrifice comfort or style for those messy lacerations. Feel that felt. It will not stain. Coffin’s were designed for the dead, but we’re undead. We deserve to spend the day in some comfort. Try our massage coffins. Yes, that’s a full body, heated massage with customizable settings. Does wonders for rigor mortis. Our iCoffins, for you younger, tech savvy vampires, let you spend all day online. Binge through your favorite reruns before nightfall, or set up dates with unsuspecting victims. E-mail, Twitter, whatever you like; it can all be interfaced with the subtle motions of your eyes during your diurnal encumbrance.”
“What do you mean, ‘we’?” I asked, sniffing the air. “You’re no vampire.”
“Ah yes, a discerning snout you have there, my friend. True, I’m a familiar, recently in the employ of Count Meere. You may have heard of him, Count Missinfra Meere? I represent his interests. I can assure you, though I do not make a habit of sleeping in coffins, I have personally tested out each and every design, and I look forward to the night I am turned. Myself, I think I’ll take this classic when the time comes.”
He caressed a glossy coffin of an exquisite blackness.
“Now this is comfort,” he went on. “Sensory deprivation to the max. You cannot even hear yourself think. It’s the closest to dead you can get without actually dying. Come, sir, you won’t regret it. Give it a lie down.”
Gazing into the eyes of the clown, I found his mind was only darkness, like a black mirror reflecting my own thoughts back at me. It was not unlike the glossy coffin he was holding open for me.
“No,” I answered. “I’m not in the market, at the moment, but I’ll remember—count Meere, was it?—if anything should happen.”
“And I,” said Mr. Clown, “do not intend to forget you.”
We continued to stare, and I felt the prying force of his unfaced mind pressing into me. He was, at once nothing, an empty head like any good familiar ought to be, and yet some shapeless force remained of his ravaged psyche, a sort of waiting punchline, like someone about to spring a bad pun. I had the terrible feeling that the joke would be on me. Then he turned away.
“Step right up,” he bellowed, jumping at a group of passing vampires. Judging by their clothes, they were punks from the eighties. “Doesn’t the modern world get you down with all the . . . ” his voice faded as I walked away, repeating under my breath, “Missinfra Meere, Missinfra Meere, Missinfra Meere.” I felt sure I had heard the name before.
Tale Told 