Domenic Molinaro

Kill ‘Em DeadBy: Domenic Molinaro

Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the

Requirements for a Degree in Writing

Creative Option

12/08/2012Thesis Advisor: Professor Vastola

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Table of Contents:

I. Abstract

II. ‘Kill ‘Em Dead’

- Section 1- Peter Smith- Section 2 – Drake Polvo

II: Writing Influences, Challenges and Philosophies

I. Abstract

This thesis is parts of a larger work tentatively titled “Kill ‘Em Dead” in which the

protagonist is a zombie in an unnamed technological wasteland. He mimics the zombies he sees

on TV. Drake Polvo is hunting him down, mimicking detectives and cowboys. They are both are

in a fugue state with a vague sense of duty, in denial of himself and the world and living on only

by proving he is a good man, whatever that may happen to mean at the time. The end result is

supposed to feel like a surrealistic western in a destroyed future.

II. Kill ‘Em Dead

Section 1.

From the inner-voice box of Peter Smith, November 16th, 2033:

“They think we’re all mindless monsters, but that’s not the whole truth. The ones who roam

around like someone was prodding them with a stick were mostly dumb to begin with. My own

thoughts are just as clear as they were before this whole shindig went down. Some sort of virus

they said, from some bastard of a fish that no one had seen up until this point.

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A Paleolithic time-bomb.

My body was peeling off in sheets, but that was no big deal really. It was actually sort of fun

to flick at the exposed muscle and watch it spasm. I had to find all sorts of ways to amuse

myself now that I was interminably awake.

As a sort-of occupation I’d taken to collecting the bones that littered the streets and piling

them in a far off lot. It didn’t seem right to have them keep being stepped on the way they were.

Just this morning I found a whole skeleton that I added to the rest. Maybe we could have been

friends.

They closed down the city a while ago, so I was stuck here with these stumbling bums.

Occasionally some of the unaffected would venture inside looking for food and supplies and

whatnot. I’d call out to them if I could, but my throat was lined in a growth that only allowed

base utterings. Even if I were to get their attention, they usually had shotguns or something

similar in tow. I had seen them dispense death generously, and they were just as likely to do the

same to me if I ever got in range.

I remember seeing a neighbor harpooned in the eye, and how his brains clung to the steel like

fish guts. A girl of 15 of who I knew by name only had her head smashed like a melon against a

concrete wall. I’d seen others I did not identify scourged and punctured, blown up and torn

apart, castrated, crushed. I even saw one raped. I did the best I could to avoid such a fate.

It wouldn’t be so bad except for the hunger. I used to tell myself that it was just a symptom,

that I wasn’t really this hungry. No one could ever be this hungry. The hunger wasn’t real so I

should feel no need to obey it. This made sense for a while. When it stopped making sense I had

to be start being real careful. I’d have visions of splitting skulls open like chestnuts and

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engorging myself on sweet fluff, or of stripping limbs off tendons and licking the sparkling juice

off each one. When this happened I took heed to isolate myself for a time, usually strapping

myself to some wall or abandoned appliance. My motor skills weren’t what they used to be, but

I could still manage basic tasks such as this.

The worst part was the hunger never leveled off. You’d think at some point there’d be a

plateau, where you were as hungry as you were gonna get, but you just get hungrier and hungrier

until the desire to eat is all there is. A leech attaches itself to every bone, every organ, and every

furrow of the brain, sucking out every other sensation and replacing it with the desire to consume

something alive. There’s hardly room to even think, though I had become somewhat dexterous at

locating those pockets of my mind not yet filled with the need to feed.

I knew some of the unaffected had set up camps around the perimeter, but I wouldn’t dare

relay that to any of these halfwits. Most of them had lost themselves long ago, and leading them

to the camps would be as good as signing the death warrants myself. I couldn’t bear that. I could

not force this affliction onto anyone else, no matter how much my stomach seemed to cave in on

itself. Sometimes, to curb the hunger a miniscule amount, I’d snack on some of my fallen

brothers. It felt akin to eating globules of paste, and held no real satisfaction. Still, it served in

tricking my mind for an instant or two that I was giving into its demands. I’d gone to many

different lengths in trying to stave off the hunger the best I could. At times I would get lucky and

find a rat or some such, or at my most pathetic would resort to lapping blood off the streets. I’d

eat my own tongue if I still had one. Anything was better than rescinding into a state that, as far

as I could tell, was no longer human.

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My family had been converted days after the outbreak. I don’t remember much of it, I can’t

remember much of it, but I know that I couldn’t have done a whole lot more to stop it from

happening. I remember my Katie getting blindsided as we ran down an alley. One of them, or I

guess I should say us, sprang from a dumpster and swiped its fingers through her cheek.

I slammed the lid down and locked it inside, even though I knew the damage had already

been done. We ran for a bit more when I noticed the whites of her eyes changing to pale green. I

knew there was no going back once you started turning, but I wasn’t about to tell her that. Once

her skin started bubbling I slipped one handcuff around her wrist and the other end to a rusty

pipe.

She seemed perplexed at first but after a moment or two I think realization set in and she sort

of just put her head down and didn’t say a word about it. I grabbed Billy and told him to wave

goodbye, but she didn’t wave back. I woulda kissed her, but I didn’t know how this whole thing

worked at that point and didn’t want to risk getting infected myself. I had Billy to look after,

after all. We backtracked out of that alley, with me promising Billy that Mommy was just tired

and we’d come back for her later. I’m still not sure what ended up happening to her. She either

got eaten up or now she’s the one doing the eating.

Billy was taken just a few hours after. He wandered off when I wasn’t looking, got bit, got

dead, came back, and came after me like he didn’t know who I was. I hightailed it out of there

with my heart blown to bits.

It wasn’t that I was in denial of the whole thing. I mean, I knew that there was no hope for

me and that this was pretty much the end. Thing of it was, embedded somewhere deep in my

head, somewhere where I couldn’t pry it out no matter how hard I wanted to, was this idea that

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this was a final test from whatever universal force there might have been. I had always thought

that a man should be judged on his will to do what is just, even in the most desperate, mentally

gouging of situations.

I could fathom no situation more mentally gouging. Men, good men, were ripping the

intestines out of other good men and stuffing it down their gullets to satiate a starvation that

could not be satiated. Chaos had reached a tipping point, and the only way to determine who

deserved safe passage was to administer a punishing evaluation of moral mettle.

It was a thought I clung to and embraced whenever I began to slip into savagery. There were

other times where I’d think that maybe someone was just wiping the slate clean and starting

over. Maybe he’d just given up hope on us and was going back to the ol’ drawing board. With

everything I’d seen in recent weeks, I couldn’t really blame him.

Many days as I sat in a dark corner, gnawing on whatever I could find to gnaw on, I would

observe the unaffected as they passed through the city unaware of my presence. At first I did this

as a way of remembrance, but the more I watched the less I missed being of their ilk. They

clattered along like wind-up toys, jabbering about everything except the things that mattered.

I used to be a part of that world, a world where there was a word for everything and the

therapists needed therapists. Where to fit you had to cut some part of yourself away. A parade of

amputees marching in fear. Fear of looking smart, fear of looking dumb, fear of being looked at

at all.

I remembered this feeling well. It was like a dagger in the kidney, twisted by the words and

actions of others until you did its bidding. At times I found a solace in knowing I was I no longer

was a slave to this unseen terror that dictated my every thought and movement. The entire

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concept of fear seemed some kind of ancient and primitive instinct that had no place in my

current state.

I was the one to fear now. Since I had ceased being a victim to cowardice, my existence in the

world was no longer dampened. That guilty feeling lodged in my chest after I did or said

something to someone hadn’t come around in a long while. Everything I did had a genuine origin

about it, even if it wasn’t pretty.

Though my eyes oozed from my face like punctured egg yolk, they did so in truth. Though

my flesh was rotting and my teeth jutted out at an alarming angle, they did so in truth. Though

my compulsions were despicable and my lustings perverse, they were so in truth. Hell, if I ripped

a man’s throat out, at least I meant it. That was more than I used to be able to say.

The human mind was a labyrinth I did not miss now. Try as you would to navigate it and find

some great peace or knowledge or meaning, showy trappings were around each corner. One false

move and you were back where you started. Cushy corridors beckon you to stop and rest, and

pretty soon you wake up bleary-eyed and wondering where all the time went.

I saw them wandering. This one with his bulbous head, that one slender and wisp-like. Their

faces were melting by the second. All of them viewed themselves as the hero in their own grand

journey. Everyone else was just around to color their adventure in some way. Some taught them

lessons in love, others were comedic relief or sagacious passerby. Mirrored fragments from

different angles. When did the mirror break?

With this new perspective, I sometimes reflect upon my own life, asking myself if I acted

in the same manner, or made the right choices. How many empty words did I fling from my lips?

If I attempted speech now I would only exhale dust.

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I knew that every minute you spent with someone that you were neglecting somebody else.

You can’t spend all your time with everyone, so it was just a matter of guessing right. When I

felt bad for viewing people in such a systematic way I decided to focus on Katie instead. Was

that worth letting all the others die out?

Then there were the ones you couldn’t choose. Parents. Siblings. Friends who thought they

were better friends than they were. The only advice my father ever gave me was “if you wanna

get pussy, learn how to fight”, but I still bawled at his funeral.

I can remember how whenever someone asked a question, my brother Tommy would scrunch

his face like he was searching for the answer even if he didn’t have a damn clue what they were

talking about.

What about that girl Mary who kept following me around that one summer? Wasn’t her love

worth something? I spent so much energy contemplating these things, and now we were all

crumpled in a ball and thrown to hell.

Those that survived it don’t know what they have, and don’t deserve it either. I should use

their skins as roughage and leave their memories leaking in these city drains. I’d be doing them a

favor.

--

Getting hungry again.

Gotta get somewhere safe. Little boy doing on the street alone, looks like Billy.

I gotta get him outta there.

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He’s not by himself. Damn, that’s a big machete. First time I felt pain in a while. Must of hit

the spine. People sure look funny flipped on their sides.

---

‘Dang Teddy, look at that lil’ muhfucker, twitchin’ around like someone electrocuted his ass.

You killed him dead, you killed him real dead.’

---

I hope to hell I don’t come back this time.

December 1st 2033

I came back.

People think firestarters have a nothing-fetish but what they really have is a need to see

what’s left after the flash, after all hundreds or thousands or maybe even a hundred thousand

years of karmic charging are skip-diving through the oil tank and just now reaching ignition

point.

Who can be blamed for a chemical reaction?

Can you picture a chemical begging for forgiveness on its little chemical knees, squeezing outlittle acid tears?

Of course not, the whole notion is preposterous which is why I’m running now and leaving allthe chemicals to soak in their chaotic soup, hoping any spark that lands is too far to set anotherblaze.

Firestarting or firewatching its all the same until the firewatcher turns their gaze around theroom.

My name is Peter Ringwald Massefein Smith.

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Ringwald is the name of an actress from a time before I was me whose movies I have neverseen nor can I recall nor could I picture her face if tested.

There is a reason my parents decided to stick this arbitrary addendum into the story of mylife but this too is a reason far away from my ability to grasp. It is a pretty decent name in and ofitself and I would not mind it switching places with my first name of Peter if only I could avoidthe problem of having to explain what it meant over and over again and also having to reveal itsnothing-origins.

Massefein is a combination of sounds my parents found phonetically pleasing and so insertedit oblong into the rest of my name-sounds. This name I also wouldn’t mind if not for theincreased risk.

So Peter Smith it is with thought diarrhea inside unflushed seat down waiting for an unluckypisser to come along and get a special just-for-them surprise view.

Even shit is ok as long as its special.

Or Peter Smith it was.

I get confused sometimes and leap backwards in time.

I am actually running now from a physical phenomenon, three gut-brothers are swingingsharp and mechanical objects in the wild frenzy of the hunt.

They do not see Peter or Massefein or a bungled thought experiment but a rancid sack ofbestial wounds threatening their livelihoods and sanity.

They do not see an aching being who recalls pain like others recall childhood memories andwith the same fondness for the activation of authentic nerve.

But most of all they do not see me blend with wall and as they pass I take their lives with thefastest hands in the game, they are dead now deader than me because I can still run and blendand take.

I get hungry now and again and stop the dead-act, but after a good meal I’m ready to burn.

December 4th 2033

The fattest brothers brain comes apart like boiled fruit

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I chew and mash and drain all of its electric juice leaving an emaciated starving spongetrembling on the street

I wait for lifeforce to mix with inner bile I let it rise and settle and lubricate the marrow of me

When it does I can see again

I catch faces pressed against a winter glass hardly visible in a storm

I do not know if they belong to him or me or to another feast I do not care

I only wish to watch the faces to feel them at the height of their freezing

If I can feel one face I will have enough until the next unlucky brother

there

a father...whose?

disappointment and dread and bright-eyed wonder at the aging of kin

an abrupt shifting of light shadows scattering

gone

it is enough

I leave the rest for the dogs

December 10th 2033

I have fed on the face for days. I can breathe. I avoid any gut-brothers or gut-sisters and don’tstart any fires. When I want to I reflect on the face instead. I remember the disappointment mostof all. When I work hard I taste its true glance and remember I am Peter Smith. I rememberbetrayal and the boy who made flames seem romantic again.

What made his flesh seem worth saving?

The reminder of another boy’s face in glass. Someone the storm had swallowed long ago.Someone worth stepping into the storm for. When I can’t remember this face I try to remember

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from where it might have come.

I see her.

Another body lost and grasping to be seen if only in winter glass.

My other body. It belonged to me.

How?

I remember trying to do my other body justice, how doing her justice was the only thing thatmattered. I remember thinking to do her justice I first had to forget her, to remove myself fromher tremendous scope. It was only then I could reflect more freely upon her, without predictivemeasure. Without fear of disappointment.

Did all faces carry guillotines?

What is forgotten is too difficult for the body to bear, of this I convinced myself. I had to goand train in the woods and return, hoping there was not some new difficulty for which I wasinadequate.

Did I ever return?

All faces are fading now.

I try to sleep hoping whatever ruins I awake in aren't too far from the forest.

I forget I cannot sleep. I am not Peter Smith. I am a sack of bestial wounds threateninglivelihoods and sanity. I roam and try to remember anything except the rising heat.

Winter 2033

I do all I can to remember, remember all I can about forgetting. I find listening helps. I blendwith wall and try to become it; I believe it to be the only way to hear true talking.

True talking extinguishes all.

When brothers or sisters approach I fight to keep my thoughts of brick and plaster and all thatdoes not crumble when fought. I smell blood and fear and I want to see what they’re made of Iwant to see what happens when blood and fear meet me I want to see what’s left. I fight and tellmyself to subsume the past and inhabit the future.

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Subsume the past and inhabit the future.

Subsume the past and inhabit the future.

It helps keep me in between the lines. It’s only in between the lines I can see numbers fortheir dimensions, see them as shapes painted on the rational sphere. Numbers only make sense insequence. If you left one stranded it would seem a child on an empty road.

A child on an empty road.

Bones boiling. Remember to forget. Become wall. Stay in between. Subsume past. Inhabitfuture.

True talking saves me. A brother is walking and speaking of dying and death. His mother isnow one of the dogs. He has seen her howl with clarity. It made him want to howl too but thiswas not the burden that broke him. It was the need to howl away from the gaze.

I want to tell him that I have learned to channel howling that it is just a trick of redirectionthat even the gaze cannot detect a howl without a home.

Some howls stoke fire and some make it spread but very precise howling can wash away theworld and that is where true talking men circle back to back and guard against the dogs.

I walk with him and blend and try not to take him.

He stops. All howling stops.

Was my own nervousness being transmitted or did we both wander into a nervous patch ofthe world?

He runs.

The dogs surround him and take and take and howl and howl and howl.

I keep his true talking close. It keeps the fever down. I roam and try to find more before theechoes break me.

April-June 2041

Time doesn't pass I know that now. It is an ocean not a river and I am sitting here inside it.The waves spread out and out and out and their lapping sounds like pages turning without care. Iwant to put all the pages in a book and forget it. I think if I can get it down and bind it and putmy name on it that maybe the lapping will stop. Maybe someone will come along and believe

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what they are reading maybe they will send out a raft and their regards. Maybe then I’ll have achance maybe we will all have a chance if enough encounter and believe.

I am ready to starting collecting pages when hear a boy. It is not the boy and I know this butthe chemicals tell me that it might be. I get closer to hear better to make sure. When I do I hearmore talking bigger talking and I cannot tell if it is true. A bunch of boys no not boys they arealmost gut-brothers now this is why I could not hear. Their hearts drip like wax I want to catch itall and remold them and thrust them back inside. One boy is talking closer now.

To me.

I cannot know if the talking is true his dripping heart disrupts the signal.

I weigh in myself the economics of trust.

I know how much words are worth; about as much as a preacher's grin.

I know that even so some small part represents a speaker’s quest to display their inner workingsin a way that’s comfortable for everyone.

I admire this conscientious attitude. I want to believe in its conscientiousness, to relate it to allareas of trust and be able to wipe my hands clean.

But then I remember my own past.

I remember my awareness and the load it brought, how it was less an evidence of character thana birthright carried in bitterness. Trust was some sickness in me, some ailment the body deemednecessary.

It had always been there; it had nothing to do with me.

Every face tried to maintain grace, and if it didn’t there was no blame to even be shared. Guiltwas a fool’s burden and there was no use worrying about what couldn’t be helped. Gratitude wasthe only appropriate attitude.

Clever phrases helped me remember.

I remember how in any conversation, before any notion of agreement or convincement, there wasan expression of relief.

I remember looking forward to relief.

When the boy’s voice registered again it seemed somehow jilted. I submitted my full attention asif in apology.

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I rose and broke his little neck.

I leave the feast in tribute.

Trust seemed oceans away.

Section II.

Preface

Machines commanded all spheres of life. At first they were a swarm buzzing in the distance,

only as intrusive as cicadas in the daytime, but in the same way grew imperceptibly louder and

more comfortably into the background as darkness descended.

A choice had befallen each and every human being: assimilate into the swarm or divorce

yourself from evolution, casting the blood and guts of a million ancestors into the genealogical

waste bucket. The eventualities of this choice were debated for a long time, and very soon it was

upon them, and whatever debate that continued did so through the cloud. Seeing and hearing

became a challenge, and bit by bit opponents dissolved and the argument itself collapsed into

silence under the weight of encountering a final bifurcated path: will you stay or will you go?

If you chose to stay, you and your bucket buddies would be condemned to watch the swarm

from the outside, witnessing its mass grow and writhe and leave you clueless to its contents, and

then leave you altogether, out and into the datasphere, abandoning the slow and the stubborn to

an aborted earth.

Most watched the mass exodus with at first an abject dread, then nostalgic detachment, and

finally a logical indifference. It was a new world now and there were no rules. To attempt to

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name freedom was to be tyrannical. The unplugged gathered and wandered and gazed, talking in

spurts if it allowed some insight, and if not then letting silence reign. It was unilaterally believed

that the fallout of what would become known as ‘The Split’ would spell eventual but certain

death for that stubborn sector of the human genome that chose to stay.

One man named Drake Polvo marveled at these assertions. He found no evidence for their

validity. ‘The Split’, as it had become known, had broken him, but now he could start anew.

There wasn’t even a slate to wipe clean. It was a simpler world now, boundless and slateless. He

closed his eyes and let romantic notions overtake him. Sometimes grander visions came

sweeping in, visions that kept him going. Drake got lucky tonight. Tonight imagined himself

staring nakedly at everyone he had ever seen or known, waiting in blood and black until one

starts to speak. It was not clear from who or where the voice came, but in whatever position in

which one stood all perked themselves towards the forceful yet somber baritone which

commanded unanimous silence and attention. As time seemed to vanish, all listened unmoving.

All were teachers and all were students and all words were good words and equal in all ways.

Any voice was as important as any other and as the voice decided to make itself known all other

voices in every other teacher or student in every aspect ceased, all brain and body chatter that

was not the voice which was currently speaking yielding the floor with unconscious glee. To

behold a perspective that was not one’s own was an event of great providence, and all throughout

the pup-eyed sprawl radiated an appreciation and reverence for the forthcoming dispersal of

otherwise exclusive information as filtered through an utterly unique source. To glean a piece of

a point of view was to glean a piece of the world, and more pieces revealed themselves as one’s

own interference was diminished. They were the end of the line, a one to one signal to noise

ratio, perfect and soundless recording apparatus. When the voice began transmission all other

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was reception, focusing on the numerous and disparate aspects of the voice as they zipped out

and flew into and out of life’s equally numerous and disparate quarters, tracing their genesis,

winding around corners, blinking in and out of time, sending signals when zoning in on

something true, a triangulation of the speaker’s suffering by degrees. As the triangulation

completes he finds himself inside the Hypnaogogue, all other realities having ceased, silenced by

the raw power of chaos becoming clarity. The slumberpod snaps on, his most recent thought at

the ready. Gone was the awakening twilight of the pre-22nd century, where dreams would follow

to their fractal ends, leading the observer by the hand to opening of another physical day. Those

moments of handholding were seen as unessential, in the end, and were sacrificed to allow more

time for more essential questions to be tended.

Drake was more of a tackler than a tender. When his dreams exploded he exploded too, up and

out and over to the nearest recording device to spill any echolalic reverberations of the

dreamscape he could manage into whatever form felt appropriate. This manifested sometimes in

a violent and chaotic smattering of acrylics on the floor to catch up to and match a mood, or

sometimes as a string of words frenetically belted into the nearest microphone. This approach

was Drake’s ace in the hole.

The slumberpod engineers professed a clean split, but anyone who has ever split from

anything knows the law of residue. He scraped himself clean, all he could manage in the most

sincere way he could manage, expelling the detritus of his dreams and revering these sputterings

and sprayings as those of old would a mountain of gold. They were his advantage over the

faceless and ravenous mass, the last virgin datamine that would facilitate his ascension.

From the dream-box of Drake Polvo November 1st 2040:

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I tell my secretary I am turning my phone off. I don’t turn my phone off but no one calls.

I go to a local spot and Jimmy is there. He says he has just bought a house. I buy him a beer.

Jimmy says he’s burdened by all the responsibilities of owning a piece of the Earth. We argue

about whether a dig was worth the treasure. He says the deeper the dig the better the treasure. I

say I just like to get my hands dirty. I leave.

God's jewelry is in the sky. People walk with eyes downturned in envy. Each person is

distinct and I want to ask what makes them that way but they all keep walking before I can ask.

I keep walking.

I walk to another spot that I like where there’s a guy that I like who serves me drinks that that

I like. His name is Jimmy too. This Jimmy has a gambling problem. When you start talking to

this Jimmy about any old thing all of a sudden the conversation is about pros and cons, odds and

balances or beating the spread. His eyes dart back and forth like a third man is pushing calculator

buttons. I wonder what makes this Jimmy any different from the first Jimmy and I can't find the

answer. I don't know why it’s being asked or whose doing the asking. I leave.

I get tired of walking and not being able to ask anyone anything so I decide to drive instead. I

drive. The walkers became one walker but it is still dead and dreaming. I think if I drive faster I

can wake it up.

I haven’t had a case in a while so I go looking for one. A woman in a coffee shop is holding a

child’s hand and I can tell her trouble by the grip.

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I explain it to her. She thinks I’m crazy until I show her my identification. She gives me 100

dollars. I go back to Jimmy number two and tell him to put 100 on the big game. He asks me

what side I want to bet on and I tell him to choose. The third man blinks.

From the dream-box of Drake Polvo December 1st 2040:

I look around for a point of reference. The only familiar thing is the moon.

I remember I am home.

I feel the need to open a window.

Some joker has glued them all shut. I have to settle for looking through.

I get bored of the view and want to rest. The moon is too bright. As clouds pass over it I try to

catch a wink but I can still feel the gaze behind.

When the clouds pass I see the moon has turned its back. I start to cry.

Sometimes my detectives end up lost or crying. I correct their mistakes to avoid a similar fate.

You can’t get bored of the view. Whatever happens.

If you have to, pay attention to your feelings. They’re always there and they always need

tending.

It takes a tremendous amount of suffering to get a feeling right.

Too much for one and it drowns in the depths. Too little for another, it springs up too soon and

spoils in the sun.

I've made mistakes.

My body is a mass grave.

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I don’t have many feelings left. But the thrill of the hunt is always last to go.

January 2041

I go back to the office and ask my secretary if I have any messages. She says the same

number has called 47 times. The first 46 were nervous breathing. The 47th was a gunshot. I tell

her I know who it is and that I would call them back later.

I go into my office and sleep a year's sleep. It’s raining when I wake up. I go back to sleep

and it’s still raining. Drops of water on a lake tick like a gutted clock.

My secretary comes in and tells me there is serious business. I can’t ignore serious business

so I wake up. A man says his wife is missing. He wants to make sure she is never found. I

guarantee it and show him my identification. He tells the story of her gruesome death. I can tell

it’s plagiarized, but I tell him I take cash upfront. He hands me an envelope and leaves. In the

envelope is a confession. I throw it away.

--

April 2041:

I want to go to sleep again so I look in my pocket for a pill. I wake up instead. I go outside. I

am the only one awake and all the walkers have frozen. I think it might be a good time to ask

some questions. I creep around and whisper into ear of a tall man hailing a taxi.

The force blows him to ash. I don’t know if he heard my question. I grab his taxi.

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I want to ask the driver where he is taking me but I don’t want him to blow to ash. Motor

vehicle accidents are the number one cause of decapitation in the United States of America and I

don't have health insurance. Some part of me wants to experience the 20 seconds of post-

decapitation consciousness. I want to know if it is a glimpse of grace or just bops and frizzes.

I want to ask the taxi driver this too but before I work up the nerve he says we have reached

our destination. I have no money and extend my hand for a firm handshake. He drives off

without a word.

Winter 2041. (At this point Drake’s dreams are becoming more detached, even incorporating

characters of their own. He has made himself into more of an omniscient character.)

Drake’s brain clicked on and he sat straight up. Then he rubbed the rolls on the back of his

neck against the collar of the suit he had slept in, went straight across to the full length mirror

and stared straight down into his pupils until he found something. The iris was too pretty to count

on. Loopy lovers trust the shifting colors and lose everything. The pupils hid reliable beasts in

their blackness. Everyone had one. You just had to know how to look. Drake did. It was his only

skill but he’d made a long career out of it. His day couldn’t truly start until he’d found it. The

beast was being stubborn today. When he’d found it it’d run out screaming.

Cynthia rang the bell again. She thought he might have forgotten. He forgets a lot. She

walked in softly turning her head from side to side, so that her summer hair swept the back of her

neck as her autumn eyes searched. Her heels clicked and clacked rhythmically as she headed

slowly up the stairs towards the thin, opaque yellow light holding countless dust mites in stasis.

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He gave up the search for a minute, tugged at the end of his suit coat with his clammy ham

hands and waited for the suit to tell him what kind of day it was. Sometimes the cut was a bit off

and pulled up when he lit his cigar or rose a pint. It made things difficult. Other days it felt like

his joints had been oiled in the night. He flashed his ID quicker, pulled out his revolver cleaner,

and bashed heads against tabletops with less hesitation. He put his arms up, then out. It was an

oily day. Now he just had to find it. He slapped his hands against his flat flabby cheeks until they

were light pink, stretched the skin down to get a better look and looked again.

She poked her head through the slightly open door and received a familiar scene. Drake

hunched in front of the mirror, fat and sweaty and probably drunk. He looked like he was trying

to make his reflection uncomfortable. She knocked lightly, waited then knocked louder.

He craned his head to the left and a snapshot of Cynthia in white dress and white heels

instantly imprinted itself in his mind. He knew he’d never get it out again. The sweet taste of her

saggy skin whipped around his skull and soaked his thoughts, soaked everything. He had to

concentrate, dig to make every word count. He dug.

“Hi Cyn”

She thought of being cordial, then decided differently.

“Is dinner even ready?”

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The words released the lock and his mind could breathe. He didn’t have to dig for the words

anymore. They talked.

Johnny rode down the highway and thought to himself: this is a summer of my youth.

Davie crept in and walked lightly past the stairs. He tried not to look to look up Cynthia’s

dress, Drake wouldn’t like that. The night’s importance and been explained to him many times

by many people. He took a left at the corner into the kitchen, took a seat and waited.

Drake looked at the watch he’d gotten from the boys. As soon as he did he was afraid Cynthia

would think she was boring him. Fifteen minutes and no one else had showed. The lock was

tightening again.

She’d heard someone else come in but didn’t mention it. Drake didn’t leave many openings to

have his balls busted. It was the only time he had coked for anyone except himself, and the

magnitude of this was not lost on anyone. The sound of what could only be dropped silverware

ruined the joke and she gave a smirk. Drake gave a scowl and they headed down.

Davie was frantically picking up spoons and forks.

“I thought…I thought I’d get everything ready”

Drake tried to think of a suitably insulting animal but thought of Cynthia and instead said:

“….Good man”

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Davie smiled at Drake and Cynthia smiled at Davie to make up for the one she knew Drake

wouldn’t return.

Drake checked the roast. Cynthia helped Davie set the table. It was small and round and a

sliding middle section to make it an oval table if needed. Drake brought over the roast, set it in

the middle and took a seat opposite the door. Davie sat to his right and Cynthia his left. Drake

bowed his head and sat in silence.

Davie admired Drake for being close to the Lord.

Cynthia thought he might have had fallen asleep.

Drake was waiting for the calm. It wasn’t emotion that scared him, it was the calm. Emotion

was a form of energy and any form of energy could be controlled. He saw it in the rovers and

drunks. Sometimes a source of his, a barfly named Marty, would have one drink too much and

start spouting off about all sorts of things with a half-informed mania. Then all of a sudden he’d

stop and get quiet and tell Drake to leave him alone. He’d felt a bubble in his heart and he

squashed it. The calm couldn’t be squashed. It sends you adrift in the dark water with your arms

and legs bound. Struggle and you’d sink. All you could do was try to keep your head above

water, hoping no one else caused waves and drowned you both. No one like Johnny. Johnny

liked to cause waves.

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Everyone turned their heads as Johnny slammed the door and waved around a half gone

bottle of white wine.

Johnny saw the three faces like withered suns, felt cold and wondered how to make them burn

bright.

“Hey gang”

He sat across from Drake, ran a palm through his hair while his wrist jingled and took a swig.

Cynthia’s shifted in her seat and tried not to look at Johnny. She looked at Johnny’s finger,

saw the ring and recoiled inside.

Davie sipped his water.

The change in Cynthia’s body language set a wildfire in Drake’s mind. He saw Johnny’s

smug mug. He saw Cynthia hiding her hands. He dropped his knife on purpose and went under

the table to retrieve it. He saw the tan line on her ring finger. It wasn’t enough evidence until he

saw Johnny shoot a quick sideways glance to the left. Then he saw Johnny hiding his own hands.

When Drake saw this he excused himself from the table and went straight up to his bedroom. He

took the revolver from his bedside dresser and looked for the beast one more time. When he

found it Drake Polvo’s brain clicked off.

III. Influences, Challenges, Philosophy

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The main point of ‘Kill Em Dead’ was to get the feeling of being zombie down the best I

could. What constituted a zombie never really entered into the picture. I only knew that I looked

around in zombie fare around me and felt unsatisfied in understanding what it might be like to be

one. Attached to this longing was the phrase “You killed him dead. You killed him real dead.” I

knew the story ended like this.

When writing the original short story, I hadn’t experimented much with writing and so didn’t

know what to expect actually trying to match and mold a story from two vague inclinations. I

tried to build a story around this phrase and this ending, and ended up with a somber almost

journalistic account of a civil-minded zombie. In between the writing of that story and its

continuation (Section 2) I began to read enthusiastically. I discovered a host of writers that

challenged my notions of what stories could be and introduced me to forms of writing which

more closely reflected life as I had always viewed it internally.

One story in particular that challenged the conventions of storytelling I had set in my mind,

while simultaneously affirming an inner vision of storytelling I could not articulate, was John

Barth’s “Lost in the Funhouse”. From the opening line, ‘For whom is the funhouse fun?’, it set a

tone of rule and wall breaking along with acute poetic nostalgia that swept me away.

When I began to think about why this particular story engaged my deepest curiosities more

than any other I realized it had to a large part to do with the “meta” level of the narrative, as it

had felt closer to real life to me than the usual stories I enjoyed.

A large part of my emotional and intellectual upbringing was through the internet, where I

was able to research, cross-reference and consume any piece of information or entertainment I

found suitable. It was impossible to get bored with there always being something new to click on

or consume.

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While this free-for-all opened me up to breadth of philosophies, realities, and viewpoints of

life it also closed off the borders of the world. Everything seemed within reach, most experiences

were simulatable, and nothing was mysterious. Internet content had to adapt to this wild west

environment where attention spans could raid and abandon ship on a whim. Content become

kernelized, small and smaller kernels of information still promising to pack the same punch and

letting the user avoid the risk of missing some newer better kernel somewhere else. This

phenomena happens with jokes and ideas and the spreading of memes online in general. Ideas

and expressions have had to become more compact and powerful while still delivering the

overall message. A celebrity’s death obituary could be viewed in real-time, and even then would

only be a morning’s novelty. Metaphysics was wikipedia entry. God was only a footnote. Humor

and pathos began to become and more self-referential as the ceiling of knowledge seemed to

come down and lock us all inside, forcing us to compete to entertain and enlighten ourselves in

this surrealistic, but somehow more realistic, new frontier. The penchant for extreme, compact

mini-experiences spilled over into what I expected and enjoyed in all manners of artistic life.

When it came to the emotions, I found that the wealth of movies, music and literature at my

fingertips caused me to become more critical and discerning of the entertainment involved based

on their ability to evoke deeper emotional reactions from me, be it wonder or despair or

nostalgia. But as I dove deeper into spheres of wonder or despair or nostalgia I found my appetite

becoming more discerning and desiring deeper and more nuanced engagement and

understanding in each. My appetite for verisimilitude was undergoing kernelization.

There is a general notion that an over-indulgence in electronic entertainment will deaden the

emotions, and that may well be true, but I found that it also caused me to have a deep

appreciation and awareness for very distinct emotional states. I studied human faces for hours a

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day, even if I didn’t mean to, retrieving whatever information they possessed. Humans laughing

and screwing and dying, better stronger and faster than in real life. It was loose and bizarre but

somehow more than real. In my overlord state of mind the TV shows, characters, and lines of

dialogue I absorbed competed for this more-than-realness, becoming more and more kernelized

along the way. I figured the healthiest kernels would get stuck somewhere and I could use them

later.

I became infatuated with anything that could smatter emotions and ideas and glandular

activity together in my reading, watching and my own writing. I wanted short thrills in shorter

and shorter installment, down and down the rabbit hole wherever it lead. I read Cormac

McCarthy’s ‘Blood Meridian’ around this time which was for me the embodiment of the patch-

by-patch approach to creating a world I envisioned. Paul Auster’s ‘City of Glass’ was time-

warping schizophrenic bliss, and like Barth showed me that it was sometimes better to break the

rules. I had long liked Raymond Carver, whose characters feel huge and world-like, rambling

for what seems like a long time until you turn the page and realize the story has ended and feel

somehow changed. I found Donald Barthelme, who made an art and a career out of fitting huge

worlds into single patches. These among others were stories I could read in a matter of 20

minutes, or in the case of Barthelme a fraction of that, and still feel like I had a transformative

artistic experience. The poetry of W.S. Merwin with his mastery of unbound language showed

me how small and weird kernels could be and still be tremendously effective.

I wanted to be like them. I became infatuated with capturing the best morsels onto the page,

from my own mind mixed with whatever influences were involved. I never worried about where

or if they belonged. I started with a couple sentences that had a really nice ring to them. These

sentences would usually be something I pulled from the unconscious whisperings of the night

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before, which I am able to carry like an innocent egg from my brain to physical form with

minimum spoilage by way of smartphone. I wrote and rewrote these phrases, expanding and

turning phrases them over, moving them forward and backward inside and out. I didn’t care

about length or size or placement, I just wanted to get the substance of the words down in some

capacity and would figure out the form later. This tendency to get obsessed about singular

passages, and inability to be able to incorporate longer arcs led me to write the way I do.

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