On Being a Zombie...

Being dead was a very boring way to live.

In fact, death in itself was a bit of a disappointment. When she’d been alive, she’d been expecting rivers of souls and walking skeletons driving the boat, or great cloudy expanses guarded by golden gates and a little man in a white dress, or some guy with a feather on a scale, or…

Well, not a random floaty sensation.

And that was it. Death. How exciting.

But she’d gotten used to it, really, after all this time. Being dead was, in short, boring. Not even worth the times that some mad scientist or crazy sorcerer or normal music video director - mental, that one - would raise her, and scores of others, to terrorize the world.
Which was fun, really. Most of the time. Not all of the dead thought so, of course, but who could blame them? Just because you were lazy in life didn’t mean it was going to change after death; although it gave them no excuse to go around moaning and complaining like that. Really. Some of them actually liked getting a chance to stretch their legs for a little while. It was refreshing.

Besides, she really didn’t like that floaty sensation all that much. It was still disappointing.
It was always a relief to feel the pull and restriction of promised reanimation. She’d yawn happily and stretch out her arms, breaking through the familiar hole in her coffin, and climb out contentedly. She’d walk a little stiffly, of course – after a few more thousand years of rigor mortis, who wouldn’t?

And it terrified the mortals!

It was almost laughable, really, how everyone found them threatening. Not to say she wouldn’t have done the same when she was alive, but now that she was on the other side she found it hilarious how a couple of zombies talking an afternoon walk would start a mass panic.
And she’d never eaten a brain in her life. Humans were too fast. Rigor mortis made it impossible to walk more quickly than a slow stumble.
She’d stumble from her grave like a drunkard from a bar, muddled and delighting in the feel of the wind on her bones. What remained of her hair would let the rain of the thunderstorm – there was always a thunderstorm – rinse through it, washing away the soil and bugs and basic filth that came with being dead. Lighting would flash and her vision would delight in seeing the brightness and spots that came afterwards.

She’d stumble around happily, wondering who it was that had called her up this time and what cause they were after now.

Eventually, usually by morning, she’d feel the little light inside her go out, and she’d stumble back to her grave. Her cemetery-mates would wave at her – oh, how’s the coffin doing? Still have those earthworm problems? – and she’d climb back in.

And she’d float again, for a little while.

As always.

She’d much rather be alive, she reflected once. Being dead was a boring way to live.