Before she brought me home, Fairy_26 flew me to the sky and in the huge blueness there, behind small scattered white clouds that looked like freckles on his face, I saw Guy Boy Man, and with a thunderous sound, he spoke:
“You know what makes the world go around? It’s not love. It’s not money. It’s unhappiness. It’s dissatisfaction. Think about it. Misery is the reason for everything. The only reason to create anything, or, in the unusual case of God, everything, is because you’re dissatisfied. You don’t waste your time creating something else if you’re happy with what you already have, right?
“From the moment you’re conceived, you’re unhappy. You start dividing, trying to get away from yourself, trying to escape. You can’t. You scream your way into the world. As soon as you’re old enough to realize that unhappiness is your problem and crying isn’t going to get you everything you ever wanted, you start hoping, foolishly hoping, the miserable feeling will pass. Being a kid sucks so you spend all your time wishing you were grown up. You think you’ll be happy then. You believe it. You’re sure of it. When you can drive, everything will be great. But it isn’t. When you can leave home, everything will be great. Then it’s not. All of a sudden, you’re grown up and being a grown-up sucks too! Being a grown-up might even suck worse than being a kid! When you grow up or, more accurately, think you should have grown up by now, you start to panic a little. Why are you so miserable? Maybe it’s because you’re single. Being single sucks. So you try dating. Dating sucks so you try marriage. If you’re a woman, you probably dreamed about getting married and then you had kids because being married wasn’t as great as you thought it’d be and then you went back to school because having kids wasn’t that hot either and then you had an affair. If you’re a guy, you probably got married because you met a girl you were more afraid of losing than you were of getting married to and you had kids because your wife wouldn’t shut up about it and then you locked yourself in the office until you could have an affair. Maybe you’re gay, which I’ve got to believe is almost always ironic or you’re alone, which is great except for the loneliness.
“Nobody is happy. Nobody is satisfied. Basically you just stagger around your whole life, not knowing where you come from, not knowing who you really are, not knowing where you’re going and doing things you hate because you think you wanted to at some point or you think it’ll lead to something you want at some point. You didn’t and it won’t.”
Fairy_26 told me Guy Boy Man has a prayer:
“God,
The world sucks;
It’s a real mess;
Nobody can fix it;
It’s hopeless;
Thanks a lot;
Amen.”
“You know what we should talk about at marriage counselling?” I ask Chi, not confrontationally, but completely un- and disinterestedly. I’m not sticking up for myself anymore. I don’t have the strength or I don’t care. I can’t tell the difference. I’ll go to marriage counselling. It’s just another thing to feel miserable about. I’d add it to the list if I had the energy to make a list.
“This should be good,” says Chi, sarcastically. She tasers a plump naked young woman who was backed into the corner of her cage, holding out her hands like, “don’t.” “Okay, Buck, I’ll bite. What should we talk about at marriage counselling?” Chi opens the woman’s cage and drags her into the aisle. “Wait a minute,” says Chi, dropping the woman, straightening up, and looking down at her. “She’s dead.”
“Must have been the taser,” I observe.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” scolds my wife, looking at the corpse, expressionlessly. “Tasers have never been linked to any death conclusively.”
“You think all the deaths they’ve been linked to inconclusively were coincidences?”
“I don’t think, Buck. All right? You might want to give not thinking a shot. You’re a zombie. Not thinking would probably help a lot with your depression.”
I leave the back of the cart, lean down, pick up the plump girl and stick her back in her aisle cage. When I close the cage door, I notice everybody is looking at me. All the zombies pushing carts full of screaming people have stopped and are staring at me. I just cleaned up a mess. They’re shocked.
“It’s okay,” Chi assures them, holding up her hands. “He’s depressed. He knows what he’s doing. It’s not his fault.” I shuffle back behind the cart and get it moving again. Chi stumbles up beside me. “You have to be more careful,” she warns, telepathically.
“Marriage counselling isn’t what you really want, Chi,” I say.
“What do I want?”
“Something you can never have. Just like I do.”
Before Fairy_26 left me right outside my front door, she said I could visit her any time I wanted. I could call her, too. She gave me two tiny packets to summon her: one of sleeping butterflies, the other of the powder to wake them. She said she’d sense the disturbances the butterflies make in the air. She smiled. My rigid arms were outstretched toward her. She was holding my right hand and when she let go of it, slowly, I watched her amazing fingers pulling down the length of my disgusting ones until she ran out of me. I watched her fly away.
Outside the grocery store, in the parking lot, a balding man has just finished bashing out the brains of a zombie couple who’d wheeled their cart to the back of their vehicle. That couple could have been Chi and me. The balding man has a crowbar. Breathing heavy from his exertion, he spots us. He stares at us, murderously. Even though the day is warm, he’s dressed in layers, probably believing his clothes will offer some protection from zombie bites. He starts jogging toward us with anger on his face and fear in his eyes. He holds up his weapon, menacingly. With her arms outstretched, Chi staggers toward him, groaning, like a good zombie should. I stay behind. Two of the three people in the cart I’ve wheeled out shriek encouragement to the man making his way toward Chi. When he thinks he’s close enough, the balding man swings the crowbar at Chi’s head. He isn’t close enough. The crowbar whizzes by Chi. When the man is turned to the side from his enthusiastic swing, Chi wraps her arms around him. In a brutally violent kiss, she bites into the side of his face, pulling out a mouthful of flesh, which she begins to chew. Blood covers both their faces. The man screams and screams, shaking and twisting, trying to break free of Chi’s deadly hold. A small group of zombies exits the grocery store and stumbles toward me. “What happened?”
“Some guy with a crowbar was attacking zombies.”
“Terrible. This used to be such a safe neighbourhood.”
A minute later, when the group of zombies has joined in the parking lot feast, Chi, covered in blood and bits of flesh, ambles back to me. She pushes past me, to our car. She opens the passenger-side door and falls into the seat.
Without looking at me, she says, “Thanks for your help, Buck.” Then she slams the door.
CHAPTER
SIX
All Human Children Are Born
Of Zombies
On the way home from the grocery store in our brand new eco-friendly vehicle, with one naked caged male in the back, fists clenched around the bars, white-knuckled shaking them, spitting threats, one naked female screaming at the top of her lungs, and one naked young woman sitting silently, holding her knees to her chest, rocking back and forth, trying not to look at the cuts of human meat lying all around her—the loose arms and legs, the plastic-wrap-covered hearts and livers in white-plastic trays—it seems Chi and I aren’t talking anymore. Even though we’re speeding dangerously, destined to crash, only to have a brand new eco-friendly vehicle waiting for us in the morning, courtesy of the supernatural creatures with whom we, the zombies, have an arrangement, I see it close-up, in perfect detail, as I race past: an abandoned stuffed animal in the gutter. A lion. It’s been there for a long time. It’s been exposed to the elements. It’s dry now but it’s been waterlogged so many times it’ll never look dry again. I feel like that. The stran
ge thing is, I don’t want to go back for it. I want to leave it there. It’s where it belongs.
What am I going to do? Give it a good home? I don’t have one.
All human children are born of zombies. Of course, the children don’t know their parents are zombies. Children can’t see us for what we are. The supernatural creatures hide us, how we look and sound, from the young, to protect their developing brains from the brutal and hopeless reality of their existence in our non-care. Supernatural creatures enable our young to understand our words so we can lie to them. We tell our children everything will be all right. We tell them stories about supernatural beings and we tell them they’re lies. We tell them lies about the world and tell them they’re the truth.
There are two reasons: we need the workforce to help us destroy and we need the food to help us spread the destruction. Zombies are expansionists. We don’t know where we’re expanding and we don’t know why. We just know we are. Should we be?
Why do the supernatural creatures help us do this to our children? The truth is, we don’t really know. We believe it’s because of their love for human children who don’t become zombies; human children who grow up to be mentally ill prisoners, unsuccessful artists, and that kind of thing.
Earlier, when Fairy_26 told me Guy Boy Man killed forty zombie teens, almost singlehandedly, at his high school this morning, I knew exactly what she was talking about: the riot in maturity section. Barry Graves told me about it this morning at work. He said heads were rolling. I wasn’t interested then. I wasn’t interested in anything then.
I’m interested now.
After I crash into the neighbour’s front porch, get out, wave to them through the front window and Chi and I get the groceries inside, she asks me a question I’ve been dreading since Fairy_26 brought me back to her: “What do you want for supper, Buck?”
Constance, the cat, slinks up to me. She moves so easily. I can tell she takes her effortlessness for granted. She doesn’t think about it. She doesn’t thank God for it. Her speed and agility will always be there when she calls upon them. She doesn’t fret. About anything. She doesn’t wonder if she’s loveable. She rubs against my leg and expects to be petted. She stands there—so poised, elegant, and confident—looking up at me, expectantly. When she finally realizes I’m not going to bend over for her, she walks away. Then she stops, turns back, and glares at me. I hate that cat.
“Buck, what do you want for supper?” Chi asks again.
I don’t know why I’m not hungry. The thought of eating nauseates me. Is it because I’m depressed? I don’t know. Maybe I’m just sick of all the arguments over meals.
“Do you want me to gnaw off a thigh for you, Buck?”
“I can look after myself, Chi. Thanks.”
“What are you going to have?”
“What does it matter?”
“I want to know what I can eat.”
“Eat whatever you want.”
“I don’t want to eat something you’re going to want later.”
“I’ll eat whatever is left.”
We’re having this conversation wordlessly, facing each other, standing in the locked and padded room where we keep the people we’re going to eat. The screaming woman is screaming. The catatonic girl is huddled in the corner. The angry male is punching me as hard as he can. I can’t feel it.
“You’re such a martyr, Buck. Just tell me what you want.”
“I don’t want anything right now, Chi. I’m not hungry.”
“What do you think you’ll want when you are hungry?”
“How am I supposed to know?”
“That’s a big help, Buck. Thanks.”
“Why does it matter so much?”
“Why? I’ll tell you why. You know what’s going to happen? I’m going to eat the last heart. Half an hour from now, you’re going to ask me if I ate the last heart.”
“So? So what if I do? So what if you did?”
“You really don’t get it, do you, Buck?”
“No, I don’t, Chi. Why don’t you explain it to me?”
“If you don’t get it, I don’t think I can explain it to you.”
The angry male quits punching me. He takes my head in both hands to crash it into his knee, to try to bash out my brains. I stop him. I push him away, easily. I watch him fall. I look at him as he slips, slides, and finally gets up off the blood, excrement, and urine covered floor. He stares at me, breathing hard, with his fists clenched. I don’t know if he truly wants to kill me or if he just wants to live. Is there a difference? I don’t know. For a reason I hate and don’t understand, I don’t let him end my torment.
“Don’t eat the last heart,” I tell Chi. “Problem solved.”
“It isn’t about the last heart, Buck. We have lots of heart. It’s about consideration. It’s about respect. It’s about give and take. It’s about communication.”
“Tell me what you don’t want. That’s what I’ll have.”
“I don’t want that. I want to know what you want.”
“I don’t know what I want, Chi.”
“Just don’t think about it for a minute.”
“I want this conversation to be over. That’s what I want.”
“Just tell me what you want!”
The angry male falls to his knees, crying big clean saltwater tears. He weeps, knowing there’s no hope, there’s nothing he can do, he’s a prisoner, he’s going to live this nightmare until he dies as nobly as he can.
“I want the catatonic female,” I tell Chi.
“Really?”
“Really.”
“I was going to have the catatonic female.”
“Fine. Have her. I’ll have the screamer.”
“No. I’ll have the angry male. You have the catatonic female.”
“It doesn’t matter to me, Chi.”
“You haven’t been eating properly. I want you to have whatever you think you can stomach.”
“Now who’s being the martyr?”
“I’m not doing it because I feel sorry for myself. I’m doing it because I care.”
“Okay. I’m sorry. Thanks, Chi.”
“After I eat, do you want to make love in front of the two horrified survivors?”
I don’t. I really, really don’t. But I don’t want to talk about it. I don’t want to talk about why I don’t want to, nor when I think I might want to, nor what I think my not wanting to means, both about my physical unwell-being and in terms of my relationship with Chi. I don’t want to talk about how it makes me feel, how it makes her feel, and how we aren’t discussing it properly.
“Sure, Chi,” I say. “Sounds good.”
I don’t know how or why at the beginning of our relationship, when I wanted sex and she didn’t, there was something wrong with me. I was some sort of horny weirdo. Now, when she wants it and I don’t, it doesn’t mean she’s a libidinous freak. It means I don’t love her. It says something. About us. Our relationship. I don’t care enough to point out the inconsistency. If I did, she’d just talk, talk, and talk until I agree with whatever she’s saying, however she’s saying it. “You have it wrong, Buck,” she’d say, even though I don’t. But I don’t have the strength, energy, or the patience to stick up for myself. I don’t want to talk anymore. I’ll do anything. I just don’t want to talk about it. As Chi staggers toward the hopeless male and the screaming woman screams louder than ever and the catatonic girl goes away somewhere even farther in her mind, I try to leave the room. Even after I leave the room, I try to leave the room.
CHAPTER
SEVEN
Word Came From On High
The next day at work, I sit at my desk, pondering everything I learned about Guy Boy Man, a living boy who can see us, who recognizes us for what we are, and who wants to destroy us. He has the enthusiasm of youth. He has the wherewithal of wealth. I’m excited. I want him to destroy
us. I want him to destroy me. I never thought someone else would do it. I’m so tired. I don’t have the energy to destroy myself. I don’t have the strength. Aside from Guy Boy Man, everything else I can think of saddens me. He’s a speck of gold in the dark cave of my life. Is he fool’s gold or the real thing? Does it matter? I’m a fool. I’ll take what I can get.
The thought of Fairy_26 saddens me.
Before I met Fairy_26 and heard the sermons of Guy Boy Man, I just did my job. I destroyed senselessly: mindlessly; religiously. I picked up my paycheque and went home.
Some days, after work, I went out marauding with my colleagues. We’d crash a mall or an airport. It was mindless entertainment and an excellent source of vitamin human. But now, I don’t know what to do. I just sit at my desk, trying to think.
Barry keeps stopping by, every chance he gets. For some reason, he’s watching out for me. He’s trying to encourage me. “You have to do something, Buck,” he whispers. “You haven’t done anything all morning. They’re going to start talking. Just break a pencil, for God’s sake.” I don’t know if my wife talked to Barry’s wife and Barry’s wife told him to do this or if Barry is doing it on his own. Barry looks around, making sure nobody is watching and he spills a can of tomato soup over my head. It’s like he genuinely cares instead of just going through the motions of caring, which is what zombies usually do.
Barry comes to my cubicle, hiding a Molotov cocktail. He looks around, confirming that what he’s about to do will go unobserved. Then he lights the Molotov cocktail, throws it against the wall and yells, “Good one, Buck! Wow! Look at that sucker go! You guys see what Buck did?” I don’t trust Barry. He’s good-looking. Maybe he’s having an affair with my wife. It wouldn’t surprise me. That’s the way my life is going. Marriage is a sacred institution. That’s why divorce is illegal. So my wife is contractually obligated to remain faithful to me until someone bashes out our brains but infidelity is pretty much typical zombie behaviour. It isn’t typical for me, though. I honour my commitments.
Zombie Versus Fairy Featuring Albinos Page 5
