The Zombies Among Us

They eat their salad without drooling. They work amongst us. They look like us. Until you look in their eyes. The faces and eyes are devoid of light and joy. They show up for work and put in eight hours but it is an empty eight. Still they keep multiplying adding number by number while they drain away our energy and life.


I have made study of these creatures in the break room and on the sales floor, in schools and at restaurants. They do not respond to greetings such as hello. They internalize the energy we expend in greeting them. If you challenge them to be creative or take initiative they nod but the head shake is as far as they go. Spend time around a group of them and you will feel your life blood seeping out.

They are the joyless ones. They go through life with no vision and no hope. Perishing daily they take others with them. One wishes that they could be captured and set into a white clean room then injected with joy or a hint of zeal. There is a scene in The Omega Man where the mutants are in a sporting arena and the field lights are turned on. In the brightness they shriek and cover their eyes---they run to the dark.

There is one who can breathe life into them. There is a joy freely received not by injection or ray but by soul and spirit. There is a life to be had. Until they ingest it freely we live and work among them. We seek our own for strength and dance joyfully in their midst. We shine the light. We hope they see. We fight against giving in to the drudgery that ensnares. ‘Oh zombies, zombies, may you awake and come forth like Lazarus.