Tonight I was lurking around on Facebook and came across a friend's page and noticed something. Under his "Religious Views" he has put "I love Jesus but I drink a little"
I'm not a drinker and the last time I was even close to being inebreated was not even in this century, in fact it wasn't even in this country. But I guess that I could put something similiar under my "Religious Views."
I love Jesus, but I'm a fan of zombies.
When I was around ten, I watched my first zombie flick. It was the original zombie movie: Night of the Living Dead. I was exposed for the first time to hordes of the undead and have been hooked, shambling and moaning for more ever since.
I am a zombie purist though. George Romero has seen to that. Zombies need to be slow. They need to be dumb. They need to be only focused on one thing: BRAINS!
They also need not to be the focal point of the story. I believe that zombie fare-good zombie fare, is focused on the characters. It is that reason why I am so drawn to this genre.
The struggle in this type of fiction is not with the undead, but with the living. The reader, the viewer get to observe this struggle. In the face of a post apocoliptic world the true character of the participants shines through. We see their true prejudices, fears, and values unmasked by the horror around them. We see them forced to either abandon the moral constructs of our society or try to translate them into a world of the undead. Does pure survival win out or does humanity keep its composure?
In those Romero works the zombies become part of the background. They are ever constant, ever advancing, always right around the edges of the story. The undead are always threatening, just one bite away from ending the human race completely.
They are much like us as humans. Completely consuming everything around them, never being satisfied.
We also seem to never be satisfied. We consume all that is around us. This infection spreads as well. This ongoing consumption is something that is looked highly upon, something revered. We want more, more, and even more.
And much like a Romero masterpiece, in the face of all of this around us, do we lose our own morality? Do we let our own prejudices overtake us, do we abondon our beliefs and become part of the shambling swarm?
Our humanity is something that we should hold tightly.
As we continue heed the Greatest Commandment I hope we do not lose sight of who our neighbors truly are. Instead of "consuming" maybe we need to be "consumed" by the Grace that is given so freely.
That would be an infection that would truly be worth spreading.
