Patience

Time to feed.

We were all hurtling towards hell anyways and if it hadn’t been a zombie apocalypse that had tipped the handcart over it would very likely have been something else.  

It had been safe for a while, maybe longer. Of course it was only a matter of time before the ‘secure’ place where it (then she), and the rag-tag group of humans she (definitely a she then) had banded together with, had hidden in would be breached. You’ve seen the films.

And yet, things didn’t go quite the way Hollywood suggests, at least not for the central character in our story. Although it does indeed have the stereotypical grey rotting, stenchful skin; lack the vital signs of body temperature, pulse rate, respiration rate, and blood pressure; move clumsily and unsteadily; and are, except for the odd groan or moan, basically uncommunicative; there are dissimilarities to how you might envisage it. Whilst it does have a hunger for human flesh this is not its primarily drive, does not consume it completely. If it had been alive you’d say that rather than ‘living to eat’ they ‘ate to live’. (I’m not quite sure how this translates in this context.) And, perhaps even more interestingly, there is some cognition, some thoughtfulness, some feeling, some sense of emotion, even if this is not always present in a way that WE might define as human and humane.

‘That’s wrong, completely wrong', I hear you say, or at the very least think.

‘That’s not how zombies are, how dare you mess with such an established and much loved genre.’

‘Why not?’, I reply. For despite the zombiemania that many of us share (yes I’m a devotee too) who can honestly say that they know the real truth? We’re having to rethink all that we were expected to believe would happen when the end of the world as we knew it arrived. Just as there are different kinds of humans with different identifies, different characteristics, different ways of being, why not different types of zombies too?

Back to the need to feed, to eat. As I say it’s not constant, not all consuming, but when the desire comes - and it comes quickly, suddenly - the only thing that will satiate it is to gorge in a way that would satisfy the most ardent zombie fan. It’s instinct that propels it to join others not quite of their kind at these times. It’s instinct that leads it to binge even though the lingering memory of what once was taste buds results in a vague response close to something that can only be described as queasiness.   

After feeding it returns to the underground space that is safe enough and comfortable enough; that is, well, enough. Once there, as is now usual for this part/semi-sentient being, it drifts in and out of semi-consciousness, in a condition more dreamlike than comatose. At the periphery of what was once a bright and intelligent mind there are fleeting images of people and places, real and (most probably) imagined. At the edge of what was until recently, or maybe longer ago, a beating heart, there is something a little like sadness. Is that a tear on its cheek or merely another sign of bodily decay? In life she had never been one to follow the crowd. Full of energy and purpose, a free-thinker who sought and found joy in art, in nature, and in the company of others, no one could have ever accuse her of zombification. Was it this that has led to the unexpected alteration of zombie afterlife experience or perhaps it was the commitment to self-care, to life-long self-exploration, to mindfulness that can be thanked, or not, for the awareness that remains? Undead for sure, yet not as we have always (mis)understood the concept.

Perhaps there are others, perhaps it’s unique.

How long will it last, this condition, this strange, complex form of zombieness?

Can it continue to exist (if this is the correct word) indefinitely in this way?

I don’t know.

Do you?

I suspect not.

No matter. Having no awareness of time it doesn’t care. And even if it could count or measure the minutes, hours, days, months and more, would it be concerned even then?

Probably not.

In the meanwhile how to most adequately describe the limbo position it currently inhabits, a grotesque, yet pitiful, shadow of its former self?

Alongside the fleeting feelings of loss, regret and distaste there are occasional sensations that we might define as positive, as pleasurable even. No, it’s not pleasure it experiences, that’s somewhat too bold. There is a perception of something like contentment some of the time at least, even though this comes and goes, not present when feasting on those with warm blood still pumping through their veins, but there in the quiet place in which it dully lingers in between feeding. But again, NO, NO. The contentment’s not strong enough, meaningful enough, to adequately define its dominant state.

Acceptance maybe? Yes, that’s it.

Acceptance of what this is, for however long it lasts, for whatever comes next.

Acceptance. . . An appropriate reaction indeed for a non-human being who was once a woman called Patience.

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NB: I originally posted this yesterday but then realised I needed to change a few things.