Not Sure How to Feel About ‘E-mails of the Dead’
Spoilers follow:
This story at The Zombie Feed has been up in my tabs for a bit, and I’m not sure how to feel about it.
On the one hand, it purports to be another one of those (fictional) I’m-becoming-a-Zombie-and-not-aware-of-the-obvious-for-some-reason stories that you see from time to time in Zombie-related fiction. ‘Resident Evil’ had a fairly famous one (the Itchy-Tasty story you can read in a diary), but I’ve seen others – one really dark and depressing story from some edition of All Flesh Must Be Eaten stuck with me for years.
I guess what I’m getting at is that there’s a fairly obvious subtext to these stories: empathy for the Differently Animated is foolish because the only people who really feel for Zombies are probably halfway to being a Zombie themselves, and that’s a bad thing. I guess.
Still, perhaps without even meaning to, the ending has a tiny bit of a hopeful note for those of us who can empathize with the Differently Animated:
Where are the zombies going? I guess that’s my final question. What does the future hold for this new breed of human? Do they ever get happy? Do they feel fear? Do they remember who they were? Can zombies love? Perhaps I should follow them, you know, just to see…
Sincerely,Danger_Slater
We wonder many of those same things, without the ironic distance, here at the ZRC. Maybe if a few more people read stories like this, they too can get to wondering.
Whether or not that was the author’s intent.
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