My Ice Prince

– Let's be friends, Misha! I don't know anyone here! – Ellie whispered to me after a moment's pause.

– I'd love to, because I don't know anyone here either! – I told her.

– And the guy who brought you?

– He just helped me» I explained.

– Yeah, I see! Shit, I'm so worried! – Ellie laughed softly.

– Me too! – I smiled back.

Soon I calmed down a bit and was able to focus on what was happening: there were hundreds of robes and enthusiastic happy faces around me, young and friendly. Everyone was smiling.

«That's what people are like when they're happy! But they will give this place some of their youth. That's sad» I thought as I watched the students.

I don't remember what happened next: I remember some kind of disorder, professors coming to the podium and saying something, students applauding… Chaos, incomprehension and fog in my head. Then the freshmen recited the pledge. Lots of noise, clapping, speeches, smiles, but I remembered almost nothing and was pretty disappointed.

«And this is what I'm supposed to remember for the rest of my life – the first day at the first university of my life? This chaos? Am I going to be able to fondle myself with these memories afterwards if I realised almost nothing but worrying and looking around? What a disappointment!» – I thought unhappily when all the activities were over and I could go home.

But one thing I remembered for sure: that October day was cloudy, and sometimes drizzled a small nasty rain, but no one paid any attention to it – everyone was completely engrossed in what was happening. Everyone except me.

I was hurt and bitter: this was not how I had imagined this remarkable and long-awaited day!

When everyone started to leave, Ellie and I walked along the avenue and got to talking. It turned out that she came from a small Scottish town: she had won a grant, gone to Oxford, and lived in a university flat. Ellie turned out to be a simple, intelligent girl, and I felt stupid around her, although I guess I was. We exchanged phone numbers, agreed to meet tomorrow before class to wander around the college and look for classrooms, said our goodbyes and parted.

I went to my bike, took off my cap and gown, put them in my bag and started unbuckling my bike. It was wet, but I didn't care about that.

My mood was dreadful, and I felt like one more little thing and I would throw a tantrum. I would scream, scream, scream, scream, scream.

Getting on my bike, I rode home slowly and carefully, as much as my irritation with the day would allow me.

***

A very ordinary English grey day. I could have safely stayed at home, as I never go to such events, but I went to it because I was bored in my big old stone mansion on Abington Road. I bought it four years ago when I first got here, and I've been bored here for four years now. Of course, with my unpretentiousness, I could have rented a flat or a simpler place, but I needed to be as far away from my neighbours as possible for comfort and peace of mind. Because my house was secluded, I didn't have to hear what my neighbours were doing all the time, although I had long been able to block out the noise in my mind.

Boredom was eating me alive, and I cursed myself a hundred times for the fact that for some reason I had entered the master's programme, but if I had not done this stupidity, I would be somewhere in Scandinavia now: I would build myself a two-storey wooden house on the shore of a forest lake, paint it red, make a wooden boat, have a dog and live quietly and privately. I would eat in the nearest town or my victims would be poachers. But instead, for some reason, I re-enrolled in Oxford, for a master's degree. Why? I was surprised at the stupidity of it: I didn't need another degree, and I wasn't going to become a world-famous public figure. Yes, a vampire only needed publicity, and to be a nuisance to mortals who shouldn't know we existed. Humanity's mission is simple, to feed us with its blood.

The weather was right on order, and I thought I should get out of my smoky house and into the fresh air after all.

I smoked a cigarette, put on my bloody uniform, a black Oxford noose round my neck, a black coat, like many students, and a master's robe on top. Then gloves and boots, though such formal style was repugnant to me. I took my cap with me, threw it on the seat of the car and drove to my college of the Church of Christ, where for the fourth year I was fiddling with an u

Oxford is a city of cyclists, and most students arrive at their colleges on these two-wheeled toys, which are very handy in these narrow streets. But I couldn't afford such a thing, for I was already at the age where the sun gave away my true age – I had recently turned one hundred and eighty-eight, and had been living in the shade for one hundred and fifty years. So, unlike normal students, I drove to college in a rare 1975 Mustang with tinted windows.

My enthusiasm for my studies was gone by the time I was a first-year student. It was the third time I'd studied here, and I was bored to death, but I deliberately tortured myself to keep up with modern life, as most vampires do. It was important for me to stay abreast of developments in law, science, technology, and art. I always had to keep up with everything that was going on in the world, even though sometimes I desperately wanted to leave everything behind and live a secluded life away from civilisation.

I drove up to the college, put the car in the car park, put on my Oxford cap and went to the ceremony. Everything happened routinely: the greetings of the professors and the management, the subservient faces of the students who, at anything, raised a murmur of applause, the a

Since I was a hundred years old I had lived without the supervision of my family, alone, thinking it a shame to a

As the day did not bring me any new emotions, I got into the car and drove home. As I drove out into the central part of town, I found myself behind a blue bicycle and the girl sitting on it as she was riding straight down the driveway, not in the bike lane.

«What the hell is she doing?» – I signalled for her to move off to her side of the road, but the girl didn't think to do so.

I honked again. To no avail.

And I drove at the speed of a turtle, boiling with irritation: behind me there was a long line of cars honking at me. Me! As if it was my fault for dragging along like a dead sloth! After a while, I decided to teach the stubborn bicyclist a lesson, so that she would finally get off on her damn bike lane, and I stepped on the accelerator, thinking that the clang of the wheels would scare the girl and she would get off, but instead, she suddenly stopped abruptly and I just hit her.

The girl fell off the bike.

«Shit! Just what I needed!» – I thought grimly, though I rarely used that expression, but this was the right moment for such a statement that accurately captured my emotions.

I stopped the car abruptly, so that the car behind mine almost kissed the bumper of my Mustang, and got out to see if the girl had been hit hard. I knew it was bad though, in fact she must have broken something.