Zombie Dream

The other night I had a zombie dream.

I wasn’t exactly involved in the dream. I was watching it all happen, like a play.

An alarm goes in an elementary school. It’s the zombie alarm. In such instances the zombie is to be located and then the area of the school in which it roams is quarantined. A wavy blonde haired girl is our main character. She is located within the quarantined area of the school where panic ensues. All the children are told to get on there hands and knees and face the wall. This reminds me of some sort of fucked up tornado drill. Line them up, good thinking. This will help the zombie to kill off the children more quickly. The world is falling apart. Our main character shakes with fear as she looks up into the eyes of a massive zombie holding a large sword. She turns, faces the wall and tries to convince herself this is just a video game and that it will all be over soon. A sharp pain runs through her neck, then suddenly nothing. Does she even have a neck at all?

Minutes later the blonde child wakes up in a haze. Her movements are stiff but she’s alive. She is still in one piece, but has a large scar on her neck. The zombie mark. Another greedy looking child grabs her arm, teeth at the ready, a salvage gleam in her eye. “Wait!” cries the blonde. She thinks quickly. “That other kid is much larger than I am, choose your prey like you’d choose your steak.” The greedy child drops her arm and seems to understand.

The blonde looks for a place to hide. She finds a coat rack and buries herself in a pile of black winter coats. One rule about this world is that if you’re a half human / half zombie and you fall asleep you’re as good as dead. Buried underneath the warm pile of wool and cotton she fights back the urge to sleep. Suddenly a friend appears. The same mark is on her neck, but her stature is not as wild and her disposition not as crazed as some of the others. “Ah ha! I’ve found you. Come quick, I’ve found a way out!” This friend tugs the blonde from her hiding spot and out through a blue door which looks like some sort of fire escape. The area the girls end up in looks like a jail yard. It is surrounded by a tall bobbed wire fence. The friend is mistaken; there is no escaping the school this way. Many others have followed the girls out through the door into in to the cool night air. This is when things start to get really strange and the zombies break out into song and dance. Our blonde is the leader. Suddenly it turns into a Broadway number and although I can’t remember exactly what they were singing about it was very entertaining.

Cut to the next scene. We are back inside the school and the smell of smoke is strong. The zombies seemed to have all disappeared now, perhaps scared by the smoke. The blonde runs through the halls. They are empty. Hallway after hallway until she finally hears voices. A teacher is directing a group of students to the main entrance of the school. The teacher catches the eye of our blonde. “For God’s sake, get over here.” The blonde runs and joins the other children who are scared and obedient. They push their way up a final hallway and out through the main double doors of the school. She’s free, I wonder what this will mean for the rest of us. Then I woke up.

cat, grilled chesse, converse, clumsy.

The Snow Ball Effect

Let's talk snow.

I'm 8 years old. I'm sitting at home covered in chicken pox watching from my bedroom window as the world outside becomes solid white. I live in Georgia, this occurrence is rare. I'm not sure why mom let me go out and play, but there I was in 4 layers of clothes with only my mouth, nose, and eyes exposed to the cold wet slush. The whole process started by clumping two handfuls of snow together, then another, and another. Within minutes I had created a small mound, much like that of an oddly sharpen sand castle crushed under the weight of some reckless passerby. A mound is added to that mound and now I'm ready to roll. My gloves aren't water proof and my fingers are growing cold and shriveled, but it won't stop me. I sway the mound to the left; it gathers the white from the earth. Now, we're really starting to move - rolling, rolling, adding new layers of snow one at time and leaving a long straight trail of dirt behind. You can see where this began, where it is at, and where it might go. The size of my creation has doubled, no tripled. Eventually my snow ball will be too large to manage. I won't be able to push it anymore. I'll leave it for dead and let the Georgia sun slowly melt it away.