The Urban Pantheist

Photo by potentialtoburn
366 Urgan Species: The Walking Dead
Homo moribundus


As you undoubtedly have noticed by now, the recently dead have come back to life, and are feeding on the living. Why this should be so is still a matter for some speculation: perhaps there is an extraterrestrial cause such as debris from a nearby comet, or maybe something escaped from one of the germ warfare labs at Boston University. We may even have to open to the possibility that there simply is no more room in Hell. Whatever the cause, these fascinating creatures are worthy of our attention. Groaning and uttering guttural moans without any respiration is itself quite noteworthy. Despite all digestive processes having stopped, they still have a taste for the brains, meat, and innards of living humans. And these amazing animals reproduce not through courtship, mating, or even parthenogenesis, but through the act of killing. Zombieism can therefore be seen to be a kind of virus.

Though they appear to be slavering automatons, zombies seem to have dim memories of where they went when they walked among the living. This means that the streets, the shopping malls, and even your favorite pub are riddled with the things, though those of us who like city parks have it pretty easy. There are mostly the zombie dog walkers, who helplessly stagger about as their canines playfully tug on their intestines and eat their hands and feet. The city parks also have old Asian zombies (easily dispatched) and the animated corpses of drunks and junkies, which can hardly be distinguished from their pre-Z-day appearance and behavior. Best observed from a distance, we must learn to appreciate our newest additions to urban fauna, for it seems that they are here to stay.