Concerning Zombies: Old People the Oxymoron

By Andrew North

 

Sometimes on my nightly romps through the sticky and uncomfortable smelling areas of urban civilization I pass an old man with a walking stick and a back pack that jingles with every step from the mysterious decorations hanging off of it. Every time I make the smelly mistake of not avoiding him he greets me with the phrase “there goes that herd of turtles!” Every time I look around for said herd of turtles but they’re never there; it’s just a skin and bones artifact with a malicious grin. He always looks like he’s going somewhere, but really he’s just going to stand at the same fucking corner every night waiting for someone to pass by so he can attack them with his potent arsenal of old man non sequiturs.

But then it occurred to me that even though this old man isn’t actually going anywhere, he is absolutely prepared to go somewhere. If the dead started walking today he would be on the run long before me. The resulting realization was that all old people have habits that in normal society are completely asinine but, like a joke about an oxymoron that nobody got, are logical preparatory actions for the zombie invasion: They get up at five in the morning, they frequent buffets and they spend long uneventful hours on their porches as though watching for the first lumbering corpse. When your Mad Madam Mim of an aunt comes blustering into your home, demanding awkward hugs and cheeks on which she will set upon with her insatiable need for pinching, she is only checking you for infection and she will not be stopped until you are appropriately uncomfortable.

When the grandfather figure says something along the line of “the problem with kids today is that they play too many violent video games,” he’s actually saying that virtual training can only take us so far, so we should be violent in real life too. A phrase with a similar meaning is “in my day the only first person shooter was World War Two!” Even the mysterious advice “no sex before marriage” has merit in the undead world, because otherwise we could obviously ignore the advice indiscriminately without any fear of consequence. Sex creates emotional attachment which in turn creates people who go back for “him” or “her” and other dramatic bullshit that’s typical of people in relationships. So what they really mean is no marriage before the zombie invasion. Our elders only want the best for us, if we outlive the undead then their creepy behavior will not be in vain.

Of course it’s entirely possible that old people don’t know anything about zombies and their roadside homilies are meant to be some types of “life lessons.” Obviously we’re too busy playing Final Fantasy to care, if that’s the case. We don’t have time to listen to weird sayings that we won’t understand “until we’re older.” Unless “older” means later when we’re done playing Final Fantasy and there are zombies. If that’s the case, kindly wait until we reach a save point because zombie lessons are too distracting in the middle of a boss fight.

Other than rabies patients and a few particular types of drug addicts, old people are the closest known relative of the zombie and they are just aware enough to say things, wise things. Someday I’ll probably be trapped on the roof of a strip mall without food, look over to see an old man with a walking stick and a jingling back pack riding a herd of turtles and think “I should have listened to the old people.” Then in one last badass act I’ll fling myself from the building with a beaten down machete and play out one of the scenarios in my top ten list of “awesome ways to die.” Learn from my future self, listen to the old people, they hold the secret of getting up at five in the morning.