The stairwell is closed off because of zombies, corrupted bodies trapped behind corrupted wood. They are forever statues.Trapped, they will keep stuttering in place for eternity, constantly bumping off the walls as they try to amble forward. They do not decay or age but they are not very fast and not very strong. You point out to the family that the door has been opened. Like automated vacuum cleaners of yore, the zombies endless bumping into obstacles will eventually lead them out of their so-called storage closet. You spot the one that has emerged, doll-faced and doll heighted. It wears a child’s lace frock and face and blond curls. In a realistic approximation of childhood, the dress is covered in bloodstains, which the zombie child does not care about. It moves slowly towards you, a wooden baseball bat gripped firmly in its tiny hands. You are armed with an extendable fork. Your mother insists that you be the one to take care of it. It’s your fault the door was opened after all, she says. It wasn’t your fault, but you don’t correct her. You swipe at the small zombie with your extendable fork, but it is not extendable enough, and is somewhat flimsy. Panicked, you grab the zombie’s wooden bat and firmly bludgeon its head. It falls to the floor. You tap its forehead until the eye comes out, (there is only one now), large as your fist but smaller than a dinner plate or a breadbox. Once this is done, the body, limp on the floor, must be burned. You have all learned this the hard way. You are in the basement of the house. The rest of the floor is a small department store. The racks are hung with cute jeans, which you would like to take. Your favorite pair is adorned with two disjointed light blue gradient rectangles down the front. There are many with tribal prints. There are some that are more appropriate for post-apocalyptic badassery, and you think you should probably get those instead. You go to look for your size, which is a three unless it’s a six. You cannot find your size. Some things never change. Your father yells that we really need to be going, aswe are underground and this is the Lempagic Zone, and that our presence here is calling more of them. You grab some pants and hope they fit. The zombies in the stairwell clatter slightly faster. Perhaps they sense their brethren. Perhaps they are bored. You think maybe you should take care of them. They are not strong. You could start the clean-up crew, reclaim the world one walking eating tearing corpse at a time. You do not. You leave the doll-like eyeless body on the floor without burning it. You leave the house.
By Haenah, Karla, Yael, Jacqueline, Althea, Lydia, Al, Shawn, and Ali
The Subway was crowded with many different people. There was a girl lying on her papa’s lap. / She was no more than six years old and a pretty little thing. Long black hair, and big doe-like brown eyes, She was bound to break a heart or two. / Her papa stroked her hair. He was the kind of man who had his heart broken one or two times. Her mother broke it the worst. She died when the girl was two. / Next to them was an older woman with ten plastic bags. She had orthopedic shoes and looked tired. She quietly glanced at the little girl. A sense of longing and nostalgia in her eyes. / She thought back to when she was six years old growing up in a country. Her family’s land was full of life; cows, horses, goats. They grew vegetables for the local town people. Everything was great then, until the men came that night… / And brought the plague. / The first cough came from the house next to ours. The newest baby in that family became wracked with fever, then open sores, then a glassy-eyed emptiness before it died. How, a week later, the entire village was infected. Water supplies became contaminated and the road was blocked off by national public health / people and the police. They were dressed in what looked like radio active gear and they looked like they meant business. Zombies? / Now it’s a party. I reach in my carry-all sack and pull out the only weapon I can defend us with: a tennis racket. Alert to all horrors, I hit two little old ladies before I figured out they weren’t undead. / I threw a tennis ball up in the air, a spin and height brought by years of practice. This ball was no ordinary ball, but instead was stuffed with chemicals – the only chemicals that could kill zombies. *Smack* and the ball sailed hard at my opponent – or what I thought was my opponent. An explosion – smoke – debris – blood? The dust settled and my wife was dead by my own racket. At the same time her life ended, my heart broke. And I moved to the city. A place that hundreds of millions have passed through People live and die it never closes Every kind of persons you can ever imagine has been there Businessmen, Athletes, Movie Stars, the mentally challenged College students, Children, Adults, the Homeless, the disabled Prostitutes, Panhandlers, Hustlers, Criminals If I could have a dime for every soul that has been in that building The noise is nonstop There are Ghosts and Spirits there They can’t haunt because there’s not enough privacy to do so It’s all in the image of NYC itself Life that continues on and on nonstop at perhaps the fastest pace in the World It’s all about the business of Basic Survival whether it’s someone in a three-piece suit or someone trying to get 50 cents from you it’s all the same I once was in Grand Central all alone and it was quiet it was hauntingly beautiful.
Life is a journey, not a destination. Just a series of trains to get you from your place of embarkation to the end of the line. As with every long trip, you may find yourself changing trains occasionally.
That’s where I find myself now, walking in a small town dept, looking for my next connection. Behind me, my last connection waits, ready to take me if I decide to go that way again. The train is made of steel bars and goes back to where I don’t want to go. Ooh, look! My baggage is being unloaded. Isn’t it funny how I always seem to have more baggage with every change I make? As I look around, I notice that the ride to work hasn’t arrived yet. There are other trains I could take. I could hop a train with the cute guy I met at this stop, and see how far I can take that one. There’s a train coming into the station. It’s full of party people, smoking, drinking and having a great time. It looks great in the short run, but I’ve a feeling that it’ll lead back to the train I first got off at. |
AuthorArchives
November 2016
Categories |