Day 8

Dark Shadows Revisited—An Absolute Rant-Prose-Poem

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If you were a little hippie-girl in the sixties, you ran home from school into Barnabas’ arms. You lived in Dark-Shadows:  Barnabas and his brown coffin, unchained.  Never a grave. Mausoleum. Family estate.  Cobwebs for drapes and the fireplace that took up an entire wall.

And Julia, floating through time, time traveler, protecting Barnabas forever, Freudian analyst, author, medical doctor, even a Gypsy looking for the cure. The woman you wanted to become…the secret love, professional salvation and Barnabas would live…throughout time.  There is no death.

Until then, you tolerated Willy, his sickness, his vulnerability, the caretaker, male nurse, subject to Barnabas’ ambiguity and temper tantrums. The Wolf-head cane kept him in line.  The sudden sight of the black oval ring, that never left Barnabas’ index finger, kept Willie mute.  No secrets divulged. Willie had his place—he dreams of a homeland, forever.

That damn, Maggie, so innocent—pure co-dependance; forever excused—just because she passed for love, for Josette, floating somewhere in the Atlantic off the coast of Maine, near the rocks.  Barnabas was too sensitive.  Too gullible—yet isn’t that devotion and love in a nutshell.

And Angelique—true beauty.  The only ghost Collins-Port and its women feared.

All except Julia—who, unabashedly sauntered across the parlor at Collinswood, in front of Viki herself, slapping Angelique across the face—a Bette Davis moment, still admired in the 21st century.  On that day, in that episode we were all Julia.  That afternoon, we skipped our homework, showed up to school the next day…late; obnoxious with distance floating in our eyes.  Our parents were called.  Every parent took a deep breath and sighed, “Who’s Barnabas?”  Coming to their senses, they raised their voices: “No. My daughter is not on drugs.  It’s a vampire.  I mean…T.V.—a soap opera!  You fools!” 

Being suddenly relevant is what every 12-year-old hopes to achieve.  We mattered. We could tolerate and stand next to the “Elizabeth Collins/Joan Bennets” mimicking their life-quest of reinventing one’s purpose and creative capacity.  All because of Barnabas.  We modeled Julia with pride and energy.  We began collecting college catalogs and planning our futures. 

Funny thing…the boys liked Quentin.  They lost weight and wore shirts with ruffles.  They gave their faces a chiseled look by sucking their cheeks in and walking around with thick, puckered kissing lips. They enjoyed clear skin.    “What a whiner Quentin was!” The girls laughed behind his back.  Our class-mate-boys never knew that. They still don’t.   I think “Were-Wolfism” killed him off.  Hell of way to disappear.

It was then Trask took over.  Next thing you knew Barnabas reincarnated. Bramwell appeared, Angelique got pregnant—it was over.  It did not end well.  Of course, I’m leaving a lot out—but Dark Shadows never really began or ended—it just became and endured and those corpses were never dead—there was nothing to die for, or any reason to disappear.  It’s all still here—the cosmos reinventing time, over and over.  What I’m getting at, is the truth of it all. 

Truth be shared, it was all a rouse.  Time is fluid.  The curtain fell, but opened again in a time warp. Barnabas and Julia slipped away.  The doctor and our vampire—the only man we ever admired.  The only woman we looked up to.  They still wander the universe—someplace called TUBI. They never left Collins-Port—not for a second. They never kissed. They just get quiet, fall into each other’s soul and off they go:  loving, intriguing, searching, fixing the universe. 

Dark Shadows.  Barnabas.  Julia.  The only love poem us little hippie chicks ever believed in or even remember.

© Tovli 2026