novelette

To get a parking space in the basement park of the sixteen- story
building where I lived was always a brain- spanking affair. It teased me
to resent my countrymen for their unquenchable lust for the motorcar.
There were only thirty-six spaces for something close to sixty cars to
scramble for. It could only be so in an environment where it didn’t
constitute political incorrectness to think one car was too small to
harbour man, wife and their kid.
You had to hang around and keep circulating for close to fifteen
minutes and be ready to dive first into a space once a car pulled out. It
was a hateful nervous game. In two out of five counts you knocked out
a neighbor’s bumper, bruised his door and used a thoroughly sinful
curse word.
One evening when I stormed into the basement park, I was shocked to
find an area of four empty spaces with just one car in there, a black 80s
Mercedes Benz with tinted glasses close to the concrete wall. But at the
same time, I discovered about six circulating cars loitering and hunting
for space. With a smug feeling of luck inside me, I pulled in and parked
next to the Mercedes. Then, I popped out. I noticed a small notice board
bearing creepy and old English text characters, a red scarf, a black
overcoat and a hat, all old and rumpled hanging on an antique
portmanteau that had probably just been installed on the concrete wall.
The wooden notice board read with a downward arrow on it:
THIS SPACE RESERVED FOR Count Dracula. My hair stood on end.
Slowly, I sneaked into my white Volkswagen and pulled out swearing to
myself never to stand near Count Dracula’s space again.
As the days died away, fewer and fewer cars parked near the
mysterious black Benz- so that the number of parking lots around it
rose steadily. Like many others, I began paying for parking space out of
the basement.
One evening when my wallet had gone dry, I took the suicidal decision
to stand in the basement park and wait to see the occupant of the black
Benz. After an eternal hour’s wait, the car pulled in and its driver came
out. He was dressed in ground sweeping overcoat with raised collar, a
red scarf around his neck darkened with age, dark spectacles and a
twenties fashion drooping brim hat.
My heart started a speed race and I felt the air around me rarefy. But
my determination was awesome. I walked up to the devil, feared to pat
his shoulder bone, grunted and asked who Count Dracula was.
“I am”,came his reply.
He’s human; he’s Jack, works in a factory and has a social security
number. My heart didn’t blow out.
“Okay, I’ll be your nephew.”
He watched me hasten away from him as if I feared being seen with
him.
Firstly, I made a trip to an artist’s shop. I didn’t trust my drawing skills.
I changed the colour of my beetle to black and tinted the glasses in the
same shade. I found an old oak board and made a notice in similar
characters that read:
THIS SPACE RESERVED FOR Count Dracula’s nephew FRESHLY
ARRIVED FROM TRANSYLVANIA. I hung it together with a century old
black cassock, which I’d purchased from a catholic paraphernalia shop
on a further section of the wall that used to be the most crowded with
the latest flashy cars. That wasn’t all. I also shattered a long fluorescent
bulb that lit the area; thus throwing a shade of darkness across the
place, and hung a bird’s cage containing a carved owl on the slanted
portmanteau. A woman’s wig, a brown cape and a brown cloak became
part of my regular clothing.
That’s how I stopped paying for space outside because I had six in the
basement.
When nine months later, on Christmas Eve, my phony uncle and I
agreed to kill our vampires, the amount of cars in the basement park
didn’t increase appreciably however. It was then and only then that we
realized that during our vampire days, thirty- eight people had sold their
cars and twelve of them had completely transferred from “Vampire
Building”.