by: Tom Rau
From the future we look at the past, the beginning of the zombie revolution…
I’m just a man standing in the middle of a vast crowd.
In my world the maggots are king. Everyday people eaten alive by their brothers and sisters. Flesh by the truckload, organs by the pound. That’s just how it’s done. It’s hard to get used to the half consumed human body; pulpy and rotten. But somehow it happens. And the eyes, so huge and round, like fresh mozzarella balls; covered in blood, jammed into the side of a half smashed jack-o-lantern. The flesh removed so the eyes can finally see everything around them. And there they remain, frozen. Terror.
I pretend I’m better than all of that, pretty easy considering I have been able to afford the medication. If I stopped taking it within six hours I would be tearing into your body or your face, a ravenous dog set out to devour your entire existence . It’s not that I don’t want to; beneath all the layers it’s my ultimate desire, the white noise of life, the other voice in my head. All we have is some fix-a-flat in the form of five pills a day, ten bucks a pill. Smoking was a great motherfucking habit. But yeah I take my meds. Wouldn’t you?
The media said it was caused by a new drug people were taking. But that never really made sense. I mean the drug wasn’t that new, and you could buy it at head shops. But people devouring people on the reg; that was pretty fucking new. You know who had it right? Fucking Twitter. Zombies man, fucking zombies. And it took us five years to figure it out.
I guess it started with our “socialist” president.” He wasn’t really a socialist. Anyone with a brain would tell you that. He was just a president. He believed like many presidents before him that the government should be in charge of certain things. Things like military, highway infrastructure, social security, medicaid, and finally healthcare. Things that everyone single person living in the country could benefit from. This president presided during a massive divide in our country. Millions of poor and under-educated Americans were convinced by an ultra corrupt and “faux religious” right wing that he was a terrible monster. Conned by their leaders into thinking that they were doing right by their country and more importantly their “God” they blindly fought against him. In reality though he was much like most presidents; a little good, a little bad, but mainly just the shiny piece.
Regardless, the richest and most corrupt controlled the stupidest and most zealous and worked them into a political frenzy, the likes of that this country had never seen. And yes it had been explained to them that their current government would not be taking over any industries or running any new business. But it didn’t matter. They had become so loud they could no longer hear. And so angry they demanded blood. So up in arms over the socialist monster they decided to axe every socialist policy and program in existence. First the military, then the roads, the airwaves, social security, medicaid the airways, and the remaining prisons. In the end the right wing politicians got what they wanted, which had zero to do with religion or helping American families and everything to do with selling out our government’s resources so they could become unfathomably rich. God works in mysterious ways I guess.
So corrupt we have become that we managed to both buy the world and sell ourselves at the exact same time. And we didn’t even realize it. Or maybe we did and just didn’t give a fuck. Either way our sewer and water rights got sold five years ago to GlaxoSmithKlinePfizer&Johnsons™. Local governments had already been putting so much shit in our water and contracting the work out to that they finally just figured it best to sell outright. They were already in charge of administering AIDS and Malaria vaccines through the water supply so it seemed a logical step. Them being the profit driven beings that they were took the next logical step. They took a virus that they accidentally created that happens to turn us into flesh hungry cannibals and developed a drug to hold it at bay. Kudos to them. Until they decided to put the virus into our water and start collecting. Welcome to unchecked capitalism. Welcome to the Jungle. Welcome to America.
I’m just a man standing in the middle of a vast crowd.
Staring up at the Capitol Building I can feel the unrest all around me. Agitation, the first bubbles of a boiling rage so intense you could rip out your own stomach and eat it. On this, the most patriotic of all American holidays we all stand together and feel the drugs wear off for the first and last time.
I guess you could call it a million man flash mob. And we are certainly here to dance. We become Anonymous. You can call us Maggot Brain.
And as the fireworks fill the summer night and music fills the air, rage pours into our hearts like lava and we eat this fucking city from the inside.
