What We Do In The Shadows and Other Not So Ghoulish Things

I explore how the use and perception of time switches with a serious health diagnosis.

How would you live life if you were essentially immortal like a vampire?

How would you live life if you were essentially the opposite of immortal?

If the storylines on the “reality” horror comedy “What We Do In the Shadows” (WWDITS) are to be trusted, the two scenarios aren’t all that different. But one is much less humorous.

I mean… this scene conveys perfectly how I feel whenever I speak on any topic post-cancer. I still feel pretty demanding of respect but I also feel like I, too, am getting a nice pat on the head for participating, but ultimately ignored. This could just be my own paranoia, but vampires aren’t real either so here we are.

Confession: I’ve never actually seen the movie upon which the television series is based, but that’s beside the point of what this post is about.

What I wanted to explore in this post is the concept of time. And per usual, I will probably be a little all over the place with this.

For starters, I think it’s a given that people, in general, perceive time passing faster as they age. Summer seemed forever when we were kids but not so much once we pass our twenties.

And in general, traumatic events generally slow down our perception of time. We are able to remember vividly nano seconds. I remember when I was going through radiation. The actual elapsed time was around six weeks. But it felt like a year living it. Yet now, I look back and it seems like a blip in my life. There is a very scientific way of explaining this neurologic phenomena, but let’s just say it’s a way the brain helps protect us from the world around us.

That doesn’t really explain what happens during a seizure where memory is blocked from being recorded. Or maybe it does. Either way… time is erased… much like how the vampires on WWDITS regularly manipulate the minds of those they come across. And those people are protected from the trauma of learning that vampires are, in fact, real.

This brings me to an individual who has both dealt with brain cancer, and kinda looks like a vampire. I know, I know, that’s a messed-up anti-undeadist statement. You can’t really tell if someone is a vampire or not by looking at them, but, come on, look at this guy. He totally looks the part.

His name is Nick and prior to being “bitten” by the brain cancer bug, he worked professionally as a sous-chef and baker. It’s pretty “suss” (as the kids say) that he is still alive but he is and doing fairly well. Still, a full-time job isn’t really an option so he spends a chunk of his time making delicious looking food at home.

Now some reading this may ask “if he can cook at home, then why can’t he cook at work?” I suppose that’s a valid question, but also an oversimplification of what’s going on.

Usually, I’m good to focus on particular activities for roughly 90 minutes. If it’s something that I am highly interested in then I might be able to swing a few hours of work. And then I’m toast… even with the help of a drug like adderall.

I also work more slowly. IE prior to cancer, I could write an “essay” like this in an hour or so. Now? I write in several installments throughout a week. What you are reading now was written over three different sessions. Sometimes I’ll use another to proof read and edit. But obviously not all the time. I consider it a victory just to get something written on a regular basis. I’m no longer looking for trophies, because I feel like I am winning medals every dang day just by keeping up with my sloth-like routine.

My day is spent exploring who I am. Who I always was, but my perception of time prevented me from fully being. Now I spend time trying to figure out ways to be part of the solutions. It’s no always efficient and effective, but it’s never boring.

That’s what life is like in my shadows, but back to Nick.I find it interesting that he spends time cooking and baking when I’m sure that his sense of time is all bizarro like so many other cancer patients - super fast and super slow at the same time. What interests me is that cooking well requires attention to relatively precise time. It strikes me that, aside from grasping at his professional past, there is a subconscious attempt to find control within time And at the same time, Nick was drawn to his profession for a reason. It’s inherently who he was. And who he still is. Cancer didn’t change his identity. It changed how he expresses it. The whole relationship of illness and time is complicated and brain-bending.

Vampires consider immortality a curse. I know many cancer patients who don’t want to live forever feeling like we do on most days. But most of either group don’t want to die anytime soon either.

Cancer patients consider survival rates and cognitive/physical deficits a curse. I don’t know many actual vampires, but they can heal and regenerate themselves. I’m pretty sure they couldn’t handle that cancer life without walking straight into the sun or ODing on garlic.

Or is that werewolves? I dunno, but I do know that this is Nick’s current profile pic on Facebook.

With that, I leave you with my favorite song of 1994. Feel free to share any thoughts you may have about time. I think it’s fairly obvious that I don’y have it figured out.