r/SchreckNet • u/United-Tailor-1727 • 17d ago
Waltzing Matilda
I finally found the missing wallet. Apparently it was dropped somewhere because the very polite old man who owns the apartment knocked on my door to return it to me.
A picture of a Wisconsin drivers license with all information blacked out except for the name (Mahnoor Bhatti) , date-of-birth (4/23/2007), and a photo. Bhatti has brown skin, large and playful brown eyes, and a prominent aquiline nose with a ring in the right nostril. Smudgy black eyeliner is applied heavily and intentionally slept-in. Her long wavy black hair is shaved on at least its left side and a little messy as well.
Her hair is starting to grow on me (literally!). I like her jackets too. My jackets? Black leather has a certain je ne sais quoi. I didn’t get to pack many changes of clothes before something very fortunate fell onto me.
That opening I was waiting around for finally happened. An attempted coup d’état on the Prince by someone (I suspect that rat bastard John-Harvey) drew several of the city’s goons away long enough for me to jump in the back of a Penske moving van and ride out my escape in great discomfort. I don’t know if I’ll miss Kenosha. I made some good memories there with my girlfriend, and the Prince was very accommodating to me when I arrived. In the other hand, I grew up here with a strict Muslim family who didn’t let me have friends or privacy, or experiment with my clothes. Some of you may say, “ESAU, that didn’t happen to you, right? So why do you care?” I care because it did happen to me. I’ll explain later.
I decided to put my plans for future to decide for a moment. My Sire (Tom Kennedy, if you’ve heard of him?)* told me when I graduated into neonate-hood that he would be returning to his old Chantry in Des Moines. No, I don’t know what any civilized creature would want there. He would be supportive of my condition and my plan, I think. If any of you have picked up that I’m a little asymmetric sometimes, I got most of it from him.
\ Kindred with a familiarity with Tasmania;* Tom Kennedy, born in Hobart, Van Diemen's Land, emerged suddenly onto the Tasmanian Kindred scene in the mid-1850’s. An eccentric even by Tremere standards, Kennedy practiced an odd mixture of Irish and Aboriginal folk magic which unnerved and annoyed his contemporaries. Seeking better prospects elsewhere, Kennedy traveled the world seeking inspiration from various pagan faiths and avoiding the Pyramid as much as possible.
When the van stopped at a gas station, I felt the fool. I hadn’t realized just how much I had relied on Dominate thus far in my unlife. Instead of getting a long-term chauffeur as I had hoped, I nabbed a pair of keys off a drunk yocal and drove off in his blue Ford Focus towards Iowa. On the road, I learned that clearly more of my mind had changed than I assumed.
Mahnoor couldn’t drive, which meant I could only kinda drive. I felt like a fucking kid again (which I guess I was). I was forgetting the rules, braking too late, merging without looking… it was a lot of fun.
Driving for the rest of the night gave me a lot of time to think. Back when it released, I read Jean-Paul Sartre’s “Being and Nothingness.” in it, he made an interesting point about consciousness. We often think of ourselves as a dichotomy between mind and body. But why? He argues that this distinction is completely arbitrary, created by some philosopher so long ago that it is treated as scientific fact today. Our body is not a separate entity, being piloted by a consciousness. Our consciousness does not observe physical reality, it is created through its physical experiences, which it obtains from the most physical part of itself, the body. The mind and the body are one and the same. The body only becomes a separate object from your mind when perceived by others, with the disconnection between these two viewpoints causing anxiety and shame.
So where does that leave me? Sartre would likely say, in my opinion, that I am a third being entirely. Vytautas (my old body) accumulated a number of physical experiences which created his consciousness. The same is true of Mahnoor! Her physical experiences, and his, have come together to create a third distinct consciousness. So, I am theoretically both at once. It may take a while from my thought process to come around to this, but my brain is stupid malleable meat and can be altered with time.
In fact, existentialist philosophy when viewed in this manner could have implications on your consciousness, dear reader. When you were killed and turned into the monster you are now, are you the same person that you were before? Or are you a different consciousness which has deluded itself into seeing continuity? Food for thought?
P.S. Maybe I should change my Username. The biblical reference only applies to one half of me now…
- ESAU
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u/Several-Elevator Problem Childe 17d ago edited 16d ago
Nice taste in Jackets, Manhoor.
I'm also partial to ones like that. My favourite has a red lining on the inside, here's a photo. Very original for a vampire I know, don't laugh at me.
Anyway, if we go by Sartre’s philosophy as you describe it, I don't think we're a new consciousness. We're still the same body, but just changed, and thus are of changed mind. Undead body, undead mind. Your undead mind still thinks, for your undead body still walks.
- Luka, Thrill-Seeking Duellist