" Hey what's the matter baby? said my wife, propped up on the bed.

I'm a fucking vampire! I cried, thinking of Bryan Ferry and his bursting flowers and his prancing horses and his flight of swallows and his hedged swimming pool and his lovely wife.

No, you're not. Come here, she said.

I crawled onto the bed and she pulled the covers away.

Listen, she said.

I put my ear against her distended stomach, her knapsack, and listened. I could hear little trapped people swimming around within.

They are eating me from the inside, she said.

Lucky them, I said.

I'm serious, she said.

But she had fallen asleep and I crawled off the bed across the floor, up the wainscot and along the paneled ceiling. I pressed my ear to the ceiling and listened. I could hear people gathering on the floor above. The ceiling vibrated. I recognized the voices as past collaborators, going back many years. They sounded fatigued as if depleted of oxygen, maybe, or as if someone has siphoned their blood away. I could hear them sobbing and cursing and consoling each other.

I fell asleep. "

― Nick Cave