VAMPIRES

I admit, I'm not a fan of the Twilight Saga (or series, or whatever you wanna call it), but that does not give me any reason to despise it. In fact, I bought a copy of the first book and read it. It was just not my cup of tea. I read fantasy and romantic novels at times, but I just can't seem to fathom the mood or the aura it gives me. It's too romantic for me.

By the time the book and the movie franchise of the Twi series was being commercialized heavily through media, I was not one who immediately joined the bandwagon. I watched the movie first and found it promising, but not that interesting. It took me a few months before I actually got hold of the book. Unfortunately, I wasn't interested in reading the other books. I did watch the second movie, New Moon and that was it.

I am a huge Harry Potter series fan and I've read all the books a hundred times over I think. I've also watched the movies and has found the interest to check out Pottermore (but I still have to make time for that). Given that I know the books by heart, I have not let this to interfere with reality. I mean, I don't go around with a wand at hand and scream a jinx or a spell to random people, not even my friends. I've fantasized going to Hogwarts, but I never grew desperate of the idea. It was a fantasy, so as the books.

And that's why I could not imagine how someone would do this.

The arrest of an American man who broke into a woman's house and tried to suck her blood over the weekend has sparked discussion about the impact of vampire books and movies on youth culture.

Whether pop culture played a role in the attack remains to be seen, as 19-year-old Lyle Monroe Bensley awaits a psychiatric evaluation in jail on burglary charges in Galveston, Texas.

Found growling and hissing in a parking lot and wearing only boxer shorts, the pierced and tattooed Bensley claimed he was a 500-year-old vampire who needed to "feed," Galveston Police Capt. Jeff Heyse said.

 OK, maybe I'm being a bit too harsh on the whole "vampire" thing. I may not be a fan of Twilight, True Blood or the Vampire Diaries, even one of Anne Rice's vampire series, but there's one story on vampires that I appreciate, Elizabeth Kostova's The Historian.

I'm just clueless on how one person can be affected or infected with such notion of acting or being a vampire?

I guess they have to separate fiction from reality. These novels, movies and TV programs are all fragments of man's imagination, they are all fictitious accounts of these creatures. There's a reason why they're called fantasy novels, fiction stories and TV drama.

There's nothing wrong with patronizing vampire novels and the likes, but I just hope that we should know the difference between the truth from fantasy.