Zombie Texting
I watch a young man approach with that strange wide-stepping waddle these modern fashionistas use when trying to keep their baggy pants from puddling around their ankles. Both his hands are attached to his phone so he is unable to use them to protect his modesty.
I am early. Early by two and a half hours. In order to save the cost of a taxi the hubby has dropped me off on his way to work. Lucky for me when I tire of people-watching I have a novel to finish. So after Mr. Big Pants sits down next to me on my bench I pull open my book and read. It is sheer bliss.
However, the bliss comes to an abrupt end shortly before the book does. In a word—the ending sucks. I give a huge sigh, roll my eyes, and wobble my head in despair. Ruined. It is ruined. Isn’t that just par for the course these days? It’s as if every author buckles to editorial pressure and drops in an ending that “the public wants.” After a few minutes of muttering to myself and grinding my teeth I open my case and pull out a notebook. Its crisp white pages beckon to be written on. So I put pen to paper and write myself a new ending. These I will staple in the back so the next time I read it I will have a wonderful ending waiting for me.
My pen capers and gambols across the pages with a delighted life of its own. The dark blue ink seems to be imbued with its own thoughts and creativity. I am just the instrument for its ideas.
The protagonist lies on her death bed, her skin cool and clammy. She clutches her fiancé’s hand with pale shaking fingers. Blue veins visible on her face and neck fade slowly with each passing minute. But just as she is about to pass into the great void, the hospital door is thrust open, and an old college roommate rushes in. She administers a vaccine that she has been working on day and night for the past month in order to save her best friend. My heroine is saved! Within a week she has recovered her strength and ditches the fiancé who had been ogling everything in a skirt while she lay dying. She sells her worldly possessions, convinces her friend to do the same, and they head out into the wide world to fulfill everything on their bucket list. The End.
Yup, much better, I think.
I still have a half hour before my train. The afternoon is gorgeous and sunny. Breezes float by carrying the scent of flowers from a small street vendor on the corner. The pigeons at my feet are contented to peck away at discarded flotsam. They bobble back and forth on the grey cement sidewalk cooing and warbling to each other. “Nice day today.” “The best.” “Say, I’ve found a piece of bread.” “I saw it first.”
The young man beside me, with his pants bagging down around his knees, and a hoodie covering his greasy hair, sits typing feverishly on his phone. Either he is having a fight with a girlfriend or is frantically looking for the closest store where he can buy himself another pair of size 52 pants.
Suddenly the air is filled with the rumbling engine and screeching brakes of an arriving train. Soon a jumble of people looking very much like a tangle of bipedal bumper cars somehow manages to make its way outside without looking up once. Eyes down, fingers flying over keyboards, they bump into doors, stanchions, and each other as they walk away from the station.
A little girl of about three in a pink tutu points to a moth on her mother’s purse. “Look Mommy, a butterfly.” We two are the only ones still cognizant of the world around us. “Mommy. Mommy,” the toddler says as she pulls on her mother’s jacket. Her mother stops, pulls a small plastic box from her purse, and hands it to the child. Soon the pint-sized pink mouth is pulled into a frown as she becomes mesmerized by the bloops and pings of the device.
A jolt of fear careens through my body. I realize that the Zombie Apocalypse has happened and humanity has gone down without a shot fired.
“Brains….eat their brains,” I imagine those iThings are saying beneath the chimes and beeps and colourful dings. Not one person looks up. The crowd shuffles away, spellbound and stupefied.
I take out my pad of paper and begin a new ending to the story.
Image Credit
`Marche Zombie MTL 2011 – Texting,` by Sylvain Racicot. www.flickr.com. Some rights reservbed.
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