When Zombies Rule

A friend of mine loves zombies. He has a million scenarios that kick off the great zombie apocalypse he swears will end the world; strange environmental contaminations, fallout, rare types of parasites, and a host of inter-dimensional and supernatural horrors.

I was teasing him about this until recently, when I realized that he's right: behind the funny cracks about brain-eating, un-dead mobs reducing the rest of us to huddling for survival in boarded up basements is the truth that the world will soon face destruction at the hands of unthinking monsters driven by a mad desire.

Zombies are motivated by one thing, and only one thing: consumption. The zombie has one purpose in all of its existence, and that is to gorge itself on the brains of others. They consume, and as they do, they turn their victims into insatiable eating machines like themselves. They kill and eat, adding to their numbers, remaking the world until there is no one left to eat.

It would be easy to point out some "head zombies" at this juncture: George Bush, Dick Cheney, Bill and Hillary Clinton, Osama Bin Laden, the Chinese government, and any number of religious leaders.

But the real horror is that most people are signing up to join the zombie hordes. Zombie Bush says it's better to pollute the world, possibly doing permanent harm to the environment we need to live, rather than risk the economy that has paid off for none but the zombie elite, we all know he's trying to eat our brains. What no one wants to address is what it costs the world when most of us make decisions about consumption based on what's cheapest and easiest for us, whether it's Chinese toys at Wall-Mart, disposable bottles of water at the health food store, or mowing your little city lot with a riding mower.

The ugly truth of zombies is that one big zombie is a menace, but not the end of the world. The end of the world is when all the zombies, big, small and otherwise, all shuffle out into the street and consume the world into oblivion.

Enjoy eating each other's brains. I'll be the one busily boarding up my house.