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A Chapter by anais arce

If I was a cat, I think I would have died last October, perhaps even last Halloween to add to the eeriness of a month that continues to haunt me to this day. If I was a video game character, my “Game Over” would be long overdue. I try to tell myself that this is normal; this is life for the average “Princess Peach” or typical “Mario” ninja- messy, sticky, windy, painful…flat out difficult as hell at times and that we all face the same sort of issues at some point along this human road we all have to face but… is this true? I find myself questioning this all the time lately: will my friends ever have to face some of the things that I have had to go through alone this past year, and if they do, would they even survive? Sadly, I know the answer to this pondering notion because I know my friends very well. Certainly, I do not wish this upon them or anyone…friend or foe…but yet a part of me still wants to believe that life is hard for everyone and that no one is special enough to face hurdles your average Joe can’t cross. This is the same part of me that wishes life was fair, there really was justice for all, and peace would always come to the peace doers of the world accompanied by a potful of gold at the end of the rainbow. Unfortunately, I know this thought is only factual in my own little Utopia and this has led me to the firm conclusion that zombies are real.

Zombies are real. If there is one thing I want you to remember from this book, this chapter, even this page alone if you find my writing too unorthodox, juvenile, or literally simplistic for your liking it is that; zombies are real. Now, I am not talking about Hollywood’s blood-and-gore vividly animated corpse walking things…I am talking about the half-living, walking, breathing beings amongst the living that feel quite literally dead inside for prolonged periods of time and yet continue about their business as usual. It is the people that, like I have in this past year, continue to go about their day almost uninterrupted (the majority of the time…) despite the painful deaths they may be having to face internally regardless of whether they’re brought about by extraneous circumstances that no one really fully knows about or understands or simply because they face deathly duels with internal and invisible nasty demons on the daily. The scariest of these zombies are the ones that are almost impossible to detect because they don’t just go about their day as normal but seem to excel at it; they do so smilingly, cheerfully, and beautifully hide their pain from the world. It is these zombies who often times are the most far gone and the most dangerous to themselves and those around them but yet are also the most difficult to spot. At their worst, these zombies develop such a strong hold for life that it becomes intoxicating to those around them as it is easily and temporarily masked as a genuine love of life, a real joie de vivre.

Now if you are already beginning to get ahead of yourself and self-diagnosing you or someone you know as a zombie, don’t panic. Having once been a proclaimed zombie and known a few zombies myself both in full remission and currently in recovery, I am here to tell you there are worse things in life. That’s right there is a cure! Unfortunately, since Zombieism is not a recognized epidemic or currently acknowledged by the medical community, there are zero prevent-all, fix-all vaccinations or antibodies that exist to treat it. In fact, the road back from Zombieland is anything but the yellow brick road the Dorothy embarked upon when she had to face her greatest challenges…it is by far not a pretty one and I am not here to lie to you early on and tell you that it is. What I am here to tell you is that this road, this hard, unevenly paved, and extremely difficult to route path back to a “full” life is no myth and reaching the end of it is possible. And doing so might just be something that will inspire the rest of your days as a mortal; it will redefine your life.