This is something I wrote many years ago when I was working. With #MAGA, #Trump & #ChristoFascism in #USA this story shows the same kind of interpersonal dynamics were and are happening in #Australia. What do you think?
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I know this may sound paranoid, but I work with a vampire. Not the kind with python teeth and a penchant for late-night bloodletting, but the kind with a benign smile. You know the sort—so utterly benign that it edges into something too teethy, too wide, and too weird.
Don’t get me wrong; I like smiles. Who doesn’t? A good smile can make a room feel alive. But this one? It didn’t bring life; it siphoned it. The vampire I speak of looked perfectly mundane, almost banal—a “Mrs Jones” type if Mrs Jones wore floral blouses and talked about her kids’ gymnastics meets. Karen. That was her name.
When I first met her, I didn’t see it. I thought she was just another office mate with a knack for workplace small talk. She was a born-again type, constantly referencing “grace” and “renewal,” but not in a way that seemed threatening. Not at first. She didn’t want my blood—oh no, she was far too devout for that. She wanted something deeper. She wanted my life force.
Life force is a slippery concept. Call it vitality, essence, or spirit—it’s the thing that keeps you upright, that makes you feel connected. And Karen? She was a vampire of will. Soul vampires, will vampires—they’re not some romantic delusion spun from a gothic fever dream. They’re real. These are the people who drain you not with fangs but with their presence. Their words, their gaze, the sheer gravity of their existence. They’re P&C mums, footy club treasurers, and school fete organisers. People you’d never suspect. People you might even admire. You might be working with one right now.
“Come in,” she said the first day I met her.
I was standing in the staff room, scanning the cluttered noticeboard plastered with calendars and community events. Filing cabinets lined the walls, their surfaces piled with papers. It was ordinary, so ordinary, until I turned and saw her.
It wasn’t her floral blouse or her wavy, shoulder-length hair. It wasn’t even her shoes—practical, beige, and unremarkable. It was the way she stood. Like she was bowing to something invisible. Supplicant. Devout. A silent pledge of loyalty to… something.
Her smile was radiant, toothy, and hollow.
“Hi, I’m Alex,” I said, finding my voice.
She leaned forward, her posture impossibly still, and said in a tone that seemed to pierce the room’s fabric, “But I’m Karen.”
The air shifted. The walls of the room folded inward. No, not the walls. Space itself. She had, in one breath, devoured half the distance between us.
I glanced out the window behind her, desperate for grounding. The sky burned blue, the horizon a pale, parched curve.
I felt my feet in my shoes, my hands trembling slightly. I counted my breaths.
Karen didn’t need to speak to steal something from you. It was in her presence, her gravitational pull. She made every word feel loaded, every glance feel like an interrogation. She never asked for your trust; she simply assumed it.
Over the weeks, I noticed strange things: Karen’s uncanny ability to dominate the room without trying, the way she could turn a casual chat into an inquisition about my beliefs, my fears, my hopes. She wasn’t just a born-again Christian; she was a predator in sheep’s clothing, a hunter of souls disguised as a suburban mother of two.
Her questions weren’t questions. They were extractions.
“So, Alex,” she asked one morning as I sipped my coffee. “Do you ever think about salvation?”
It wasn’t the question that unnerved me; it was the direction it came from. Not her lips, but somewhere deeper, darker.
I started to avoid her, but it didn’t matter. Karen’s presence seeped into everything. My dreams, my work, my moments of solitude. She had a way of collapsing the world around her, making you feel like there was no escape.
It’s not just Karen. She’s a symptom of something larger. This century, the world feels like it’s unravelling. The greenhouse gases, the looming threat of nuclear holocaust—it all feeds the energy she represents—the born-again zeal, the clutching for certainty in uncertain times.
There are too many Karens out there, and they’re not going away.
I moved inland a few weeks ago, thinking the shift would help me escape something—what, I wasn’t sure. But instead, I found myself sharing a room with a vampire.
A soul vampire, a will vampire, a Karen.
When I look at her, I wonder if I’m paranoid. Then I see her smile—the way it widens just a fraction too far, the way it hangs there, benign yet bottomless.
And I know I’m not.
Welcome — I’m glad you’re here.
Journeys and Star Gazing 