a zombie dream

Monica and I were at the supermarket when the television started reporting news of a zombie outbreak at the edge of town. The reporter told everyone to stay where they were or get to someplace safe: DO NOT go outside! Monica and I clung to the large bay windows looking out over the parking lot. We could see people running between the cars, screaming, being chased by fast-moving zombies. A moment later there was a crash at the other end of the store, and we turned to see zombies running right at us from between the aisles of cereal and milk bars. I grabbed Monica’s hand and we raced out the door, into the parking lot. Zombies came from between the cars, throwing themselves after us as we ran to Monica’s car. She got into the driver’s seat and I entered the passenger’s. She turned on the car and left the parking lot, hitting a zombie. I craned my neck to see that we were being chased. I turned my head around just in time to see a semi crossing the road. It slammed into the car. In the next scene, I awoke in the car, still strapped in, blood covering my face. It was pure daylight. I got out of the car and stumbled around. Monica’s door was open, and she was gone. I walked down the street. All of the buildings along either side of the road were quiet and still. Car wrecks littered the street. I heard some commotion, people shouting, and I went down an alley into a backyard. In a house surrounded by trees were several people. They beckoned me over and let me join them. And guess what? Monica was there! She explained that I had been unconscious after the car wreck, and she thought I was dead. She was very happy to see me: tears streamed down her cheeks. As to why there were no zombies, they explained that the zombies stayed indoors during the day, in the darkness, because the sunlight hurt them. So wouldn’t that make them vampires? I don’t know. I’m just telling you how the dream went. The rest of the day was spent boarding up the house and collecting food—oddly, the only food collected were gourds and pumpkins—and when I went to bed that night, I could hear the zombies outside. I was happy, though, because finally life was exciting, and I had found a purpose: to survive, and to help others survive.

a message to courtney

Amos and I sat in the coffee shop for lunch talking about things. Some of the things he said really made me think. It took me the longest time to get to the point where I didn’t want to “be” with Courtney romantically. Holy cow, a long freaking time. Months. We only dated for two months, sure, but I have never felt so close to anyone, so alive with anyone, I have never felt life mean so much. When we ended without any hope of a future, I went through a dark period. I struggled with hope, with dreams. I battled demons of guilt and shame. I fought to keep my head above the water as the depression threatened to pull me under. But I endured. That is something I’m really good at. Endurance. Anyways, I endured despite the countless tears, the nights where I would only dream of her and wake up not wanting to live. I endured soaking my pillows with tears and filling my journals with ramblings about how amazing she was and how I could never find anyone like her, how my own stupidity had taken her from my life, and how I was the only one to blame for the breakup. Logic completely abandoned me. But over time, I began to get things together. My face brightened. I started laughing again. Life continued. No, it’s not easy. I see her and Kyle together, and it hurts. Not a piercing, numbing hurt, but a gentle throb in the back of my throat, a strange hurt that cannot be described by words. I am moving on. No, I’m not dating anyone (this school year I’ve already been led on and kicked to the ground twice by different girls). But I am dealing with things. And getting better at dealing with them. Will she ever know how deeply I cared for her, how great my affections for her truly were? I doubt it (unless she reads this). We don’t talk. It’s better that we not talk, at least better now. The last thing I want is to find my feelings for her breaking through like water crashing through a ruptured dam; I don’t want to endure that hell again. I will if I have to, but it’s not what I desire. Anyways, the point of this whole xanga entry returns to what Amos was saying. He said, in reference to an ex-girlfriend, that his romantic feelings for her will fade, but there will always be a part of him that loves her. He said that, and I thought immediately of Courtney. Do I want to hold her, kiss her, tell her everything will be okay, give the world to her? Not like I used to. I don’t even know her anymore. But I still care for her. Care for her deeply. I care that she’s happy. I hope and pray that she’s happy, and that she’s doing what she wants to do with life, and that it’s making her happy. My romantic feelings for Courtney are fading, but the care I had for her is strong as ever. We don’t talk. We don’t even exchange glances most of the time, even though we see one another every day. Despite all of this, I care for her bunches. I have never cared so deeply for any of my ex-girlfriends. It is something weird, to be sure, but yet something undeniable.

So, Courtney, if you’re reading this (and I have no idea if you even look at my xanga anymore and no reason to think you will come across this): “Just know that I may seem cold sometime, and even though I ignore you most of the time—because I do not want to return to the great pain I experienced after our breakup—I don’t hate you. I think you’re an amazing girl, and any guy who ends up with you is truly blessed by God. I want you to know that I care for you more than I’ve ever cared for any other human being, and that I want you to be happy no matter what that entails.” That’s all.

monica's CD

Monica and I have been working together a lot at the Hilltop. It is a long-running joke that I am head-over-heels for her. Here’s a little background: spring semester my freshman year, Monica and I hung out a lot. She seemed to be flirting with me. After coming back from a soccer game, I asked if she would like to go on a date with me. She said yes. She then got online and said, “No.” I didn’t talk to her for the longest time, I was so upset. But now she is one of my best friends, and we always joke about me finding her ir resistible. Part of this little game was the creation of a romantic CD. I burned it on my laptop and then we played it at the Hilltop tonight. Here are the songs: 

 1. Something There – Beauty & The Beast 

2. My Heart Will Go On – Celine Dion 

3. Truly, Madly, Deeply – Cascada Re:mix 

 4. Give Me On Reason – Tracy Chapman 

5. Everything I Do – Bryan Adams

 6. I’ll Make Love To You – Boyz II Men

 7. I Believe In A Thing Called Love – The Darkness 

8. Everything – Michael Buble 

9. All You Wanted – Michelle Branch 

10. Kiss Me – Sixpence None the Richer 

11. Where You Are – Rascal Flatts 

12. I Love The Way You Love Me – Michael Montgomery 

13. The Way You Love Me – Faith Hill 

14. Never Been Kissed – Sherrie Austin 

15. Tale As Old As Time – Beauty & The Beast

a memo

Attn Psycho Moms: PleaseStop Stalking Me

1.       My life is notmeant to be a playground for your speculations
2.       Your perspectiveof me is shallow, tainted, and unwarranted
3.       Stalkers arecreepy
4.       I am not part of herlife anymore, and I don’t want to be
5.       And, finally, youdon’t know anything about me.

Oh, and if you really want toget to know me, just ask.
Not everything you hear is true.
You never really know someoneuntil you get to know them as a person.

i can't forget her

Sometimes I have to wonder. I sit in silent amazement, and close my eyes, and just feel it—it never leaves. When I close my eyes, the feeling presses against me in the blackness. When I go to sleep, my dreams do not betray my hidden desires. Every moment I walk and every second I breathe, my mind is on fire and no one and nothing can quench the burning longings. Every inch of me wants to bow down, wants to love, to embrace, to cry out and talk and hold and be there to fight for and to be loyal, to sacrifice, to put myself to death even without warrant. I can't explain any of it. All I know is how it is—why, I can't explain and don't pretend to. I cry out for answers. I wail to understand. I beg for it to end—such beauty and wonder is torture on the mind if in the mind it remains.

Is it love? I wouldn't know.

      Why can't I forget her?

How come I ever had to meet her?

Why don't my feelings for her leave?

How come my prayers to forget her are left unanswered?

Why must my heart suffer for futile longing every time I see her?

How long must I go through this hostile and agonizing torture?

Why are her words, her laugh, her very eyes so deep and beautiful?

How come I feel this way about her?

Why won't this end?

How come my mind plays games with me?

Why do I reach out and long for someone I can never have?

I want to see her sitting across the table from me. I want to hold her hand, to feel the blood rushing through her veins. I don't want her to look away, but to look at me and smile. I want to hold her in the rain, under the thunder and lightning. I want to be free and untethered. I want to run wild like the stallion, and be as ferocious as the lion. I want to spend hours driving through the countryside with her by my side. I want all this. I want it simple. I want her.

But it seems I can't have all this; I can't have it simple; and what kills, I can't have her.

Maybe it is just me being a hopeless romantic. But after countless prayers and attempts to forget, I am left empty and hurt and thirsty for her. I've been trying for years. She never leaves me. Never leaves. Never.

why do zombies fascinate me?

What is it with me and zombie dreams? It seems I have them all the time. One of the most intense zombie dreams I’ve ever had took place last night. In the dream, a great plague struck Cincinnati, and the dead were rising from their graves. When it happened, we were having Open Dorms. I was coming back from Sarah’s house, and when I entered the dorm, I saw students—boys and girls—going crazy, tearing at one another, teeth drooling with an insatiable thirst for human blood. Frightened, I rushed back out to my car and drove to the lookout on Knob Hill. I spent the night there, not getting much sleep, and in the morning I went to the police department. The glass windows were shattered and bloody footprints muddied the linoleum floor. I explored the corridors, but found no one. I exited and went to the benches overlooking the city of Cincinnati. The skyscrapers were burning, sending choking clouds of smoke into the sky. The air stank of sulfur and burnt human flesh. As I stood there, in a state of numbing shock, and feeling quite frightened, the attack came. Hordes of zombies crept over Knob Hill and made a blitzkrieg right for me. I took off running and grabbed a semi, which I drove through the zombies, squashing many under the tires. I made a bad turn, and the truck fishtailed. The next moment, I remember the end of the truck going over the end of a cliff leading straight down into a road, where more hungry zombies stared up at me, howling and salivating, eyes wild with thirst. I rushed into the empty trailer latched onto the semi, and I hid by the back doors (the trailer was slanted uneasily, for it hung over the cliff). The zombies broke into the front of the trailer and raced after me. Acting on impulse, I unlocked the back doors, grabbed hold of the handle, held tightly, and kicked away. The door swung outwards and rocked; I hung suspended fifty feet above the road below, thankful that if I fell, I would die by the impact and not by their teeth. The zombies rushed after me, but they were clumsy fools, and they began sliding down the floor of the trailer, shrieking at me, grabbing at me as they fell past. I watched them slide out of the back of the trailer and tumble through the air before smashing into the hordes below. One of them grabbed me, ripping one of my hands off the handle; I dangled, feeling its fetid breath over my ankle. It snapped at me, and I let go. The last thing I remember before waking up is the feeling of my heart rushing into my throat and the ground rushing up after me.  

So why is it that zombies fascinate me so much? I don’t think it’s the zombies necessarily, but the collapse of everything we hold so dear. For nearly five thousand years, mankind has been erecting a civilization filled with monuments to their glory and achievements that reach into the stars. And a simple plague destroys all of that when it turns mankind into mindless creatures who only hunger and thirst and know nothing more. Order disintegrates into chaos. Hope becomes hopelessness. Our greatest dreams and ambitions die in the twinkling of an eye. The hunters become the hunted. Families are torn apart, friends become our worst enemies, and society crumbles. This is what makes a zombie apocalypse so fascinating to me. I find myself contemplating what the future would look like if this were to happen. How would our theologies change? How would our perceptions of the world be transformed? How would we live our daily lives? Would we rebuild civilization? Would we even be able to rebuild our civilization? Our environment would take a 180 degree turn, would be flipped upside-down, and we would have the ultimatum of either changing and adapting, or dying—and joining the Legions of the Undead.

as my heart breaks...

It seems everyone I know is getting married. 

 And my dreams seem farther away than ever. 

 I lie awake at night.

I think about that which once was, and that which may never be again. 

* * * 

"Girls first break your wallet, then they break your heart." I came up with that one. 

"Some girls are like honeybees. They may look cute and cuddly, but if you get too close, they'll sting ya." I came up with that one, too. 

* * * 

I am slowly losing hope that my dreams will one day be a reality. Each day, the flame of hope dies more and more. I have loved. I have lost. I have given of myself, and I've had my heart ripped at the seams. I've sacrificed my own interests for others, and they have only used it as an opportunity to hurt me. I've bled and wept and tried to hold on, but I'm crumbling apart. I am only so strong. I have gone on for four years, living a life of heartache and trying to hold onto that which is so elusive... But life experiences are a wonderful teacher, and I am beginning to embrace the realization that I am pretty much the most unlucky boy in the world. Oh well. It's better to acknowledge these things than to live in ignorance of them. 

* * * 

May I elaborate? Freshman year, two girls hurt me. Sophomore year, four girls hurt me. Last semester, two girls hurt me. Why should I keep going? It seems so obvious. "You're a great guy. You're cute. You are a wonderful person and any girl is lucky to be with you." These things may be said by others, but if it is the case, then why have the past years looked like this? Don't even make me go into my high school years, when a girl told me to my face, "I would date you, but you're not attractive enough or popular enough for me." And that is just one instance. 

* * * 

But there is something one of my best friends told me sometime in November. "You're not like all the other guys, Anthony. You treat a girl right. You've made mistakes, but you treat a girl right. You treat girls like they are princesses. Most guys will use girls. You don't. Most guys wouldn't give girls like me a chance--I've slept around, I've done things I regret, I'm what people might call a slut. I've been called a slut to my face. But you look past all this when it comes to girls. You see the beauty in everyone. When a guy won't give girls like me a chance, you show up and give them everything they've always wanted. Sad thing is, the girls you've dated have taken this for granted. They haven't realized how lucky they were. But one day a girl will see how lucky she is."

one hell of a week

My car broke down (again). Which means I’m stuck at school for a few days with no hope of getting off-campus. Wow, that sucks. Campus is suffocating sometimes, and my car is my lifeblood. I wish we had gotten a different car. The engine keeps messing up, the brakes keep falling apart. It’s annoying as hell. And have you ever realized how a car breaks down when you need it the most? That seems to be how it is for me, at least. I’ll have my car on Wednesday or Thursday, but I had plans throughout last week, and now I can’t do any of them, except sit in my dorm room and stare at the wall. Most of my friends live off-campus, so I only get to see them when my car is in working condition (or when their cars are in working conditions, as it happens to be). 

Let’s see how the first week of January has gone. 

Well, half of my Christmas gifts were stolen out of my car at a gas station.

Doogie died, and that’s been difficult to bear. 

Now my car decides to fall apart at the worst time. 

And add to all that the fact that I'm stuck sitting next to Courtney all week.

Not a good week at all. 

Lindsey says things will get better. 

I do hope she's right.

doogie has died

I skipped half of class today. I drove up to Springboro. Mom was in tears. We went to the Veterinarian’s Office. They took us to a room where Doogie was being held. He was laying on several blankets. He looked up at us with excitement in his eyes, tail wagging fiercely. He couldn’t move his lower parts. “It wasn’t a stroke,” the doctor told us, “but an infarction in his nerves. It paralyzed him, but he isn’t in any pain.” It came on suddenly and without warning. Mom said, “I just let him out to go the bathroom, and when I turned around, I saw him collapse and start crying.” We all held him and petted him. Fed him treats. The doctor came in when we were ready and explained what would happen. “We’re injecting him with barbiturates. We’re giving him an extreme overdose. It will stop his breathing, and eventually it will stop his heart. It will take about ten to thirty seconds. He won’t feel any pain at all.” He re:emphasized that we are not doing this to Doogie but for Doogie. He has lived a long, enjoyable life, three years past his life expectancy. We all held him as the doctor shaved part of his leg and injected the drug. Doogie flinched for a few moments, then slowly went limp. I held his head in my hands. Mom started crying. Then Amanda. And Dad started crying, too. Doogie’s eyes shut and his body went still. The doctor had the stethoscope over Doogie’s chest; he pulled back, looked at us, said in a quiet voice, “His heart has stopped.” I leaned over Doogie, held his head in my hands, kissed him gently between the eyes. Tears crawled down my cheeks as I told him, over and over, “I love you, I love you, I love you…” Leaving the room was the hardest thing in the world. Knowing I would never see him again. I had to force myself to walk. I was the only one who wasn’t sobbing horrendously, so I drove home. Mom went to bed. Amanda went shopping. Dad talked on the phone. I stood outside and played with a stick, the memories of my little buddy flashing before my eyes. Thirteen years with that tyke. I remember when he was a baby, running around and nipping at us, barking and playing. I shared my meals with him. He slept beside me at night. We watched television together. And now he’s gone. Standing outside, playing with the stick, I fought off tears. I walked around the house, and I saw his little doggy-igloo sitting on the back porch. We got it for him for Christmas. He never got to use it. That was, and forgive me, Rebecca, for using a cliché, “the straw that broke the camel’s back.” The tears just came. Choking, painful tears. My throat went dry. My eyes bulged. My cheeks bloated red. I went inside and took several deep breaths. Tried to eat. Couldn’t. I decided to go back to school. Catch a few more notes in my early week class. I needed to get out of the house. I’m doing okay with it now, as I sit in my dorm room, but I know that when I go back home this weekend, the pain will return. 

I won’t have anyone running to greet me as I walk inside. 

I won’t have anyone to cuddle with as I watch movies. 

I won’t be able to listen to him snoring as I fall asleep on the couch. 

He’s gone.

the dark-walkers

I have been entirely lost in a new work, The Dark-Walkers. The idea was about three years ago, as a friend and I sat in my room contemplating a story we could write together. We didn’t end up writing the story, but the idea remained in my head, slowly but beautifully etching itself out on napkins, paper plates, and sketches in notebooks. I don’t eat; I don’t sleep; this story consumes me. My only apprehension is that people might believe it to be a plagiarism of I Am Legend. It’s not. It’s wildly different.

The Story

The story is a series of vignettes telling the story of a global plague that drives people crazy, latches them into a coma, and then “resurrects” them as bloodthirsty, murderous organisms. The story follows a survivor on his journey to a safe-house of other survivors in Aspen, Colorado. It is a drama, not a horror. It speaks of tragedy, despair, and hopelessness. It is about the degradation and decomposition of a society void of order and morality. It is about the nature of man: his goodness and his evil. It is a story of the conflict between hope and resignation.

The Procyon Strain

The culprit is a space-borne germ (dubbed The Procyon Strain) that is airborne. It enters the human system through the respiratory tract. Through the capillaries of the lungs it enters the bloodstream, and it immediately attacks the brain. Its presence in the human body is marked by bleeding through the capillaries in the face; the capillaries rupture, causing bleeding through the nose, eyes, and ears. Blood is sometimes visible through the mouth as the capillaries in the lungs have ruptured (causing coughing as the germ begins to spread. The germ attacks the brain and destroys the cortex; in this quick process, the victim becomes ridden with dementia and hysteria. The person then seems to die; however, they are only in a deep coma. Over a period of three days, the Procyon germ exponentially replicates in the brain, gaining the power and prominence to stimulate the brain stem. The victims come out of their comas, though they are only hollow shells of what they once were: personality, emotions, and thoughts (which flowed from the now-destroyed-cortex) are absent. All that is left is what appears to be a human being, though it is a mindless body, an organism of primal instincts and impulses, driven by an insatiable hunger and a thirst for survival, driven mad by the germ. They are murderous fiends who only come out at night, for sunlight will kill the germ. They are not the “living dead”; they are, simply, sick humans—sick beyond deliverance.