Fat Vampires

There was some sort of assemblage of "goths" and "wiccans" at the shopping mall on Saturday. Six of them were sitting in the food court, all looking like the Ghost at the Feast amongst the ferns and formica. Friends of this gentleman, no doubt. Is it possible to be both ethereal and fat? On this evidence the answer is surely no. Mind you, I suppose it's difficult to afford finer dining after you've spent all your money on a leather wrist bands, Marilyn Manson t-shirts and a new Celtic knot tattoo. Our sense of human identity is, for better or worse, rapidly disappearing up P. T Barnum's backside.
It would be one thing if the varieties of alternative lifestyles were interesting or challenging, but unfortunately they're not. I have often thought that consumers of fantasy become enamored of escapist books and films because they have no imagination of their own. This is why those computer geeks who dress up in magician's robes on the weekends always call themselves Shakti Pendragon of the Dark Realm or whatever. Let's face it, the name Pendragon is the sword and sorcery equivalent of either Smith or Jones. Can't these people think of a more original nom-de-plume? Apparently not. Instead, some day soon, the world will simply look like a huge expanse of concrete boxes into which a load of overweight and inactive sci-fi action figures has been emptied.