Zero Day

He was dead. I was fixated on the horrid bite wound on my left forearm. For a long time I watched, hypnotized, as the blood oozed and dripped.

I went into the living room and looked down at my mother’s torn body and shook my head. It was surreal. I guess some people in that situation would have crumbled, some would have cried, but I’d emotionally disconnected from life a long time ago. For that, I had to thank the skeletal bitch on the floor, with her greedy rodent soul and her short-tempered ape-mate in the kitchen. If anything, her death was a belated answer to old prayers, with a bit of an unexpected mess.

The great “why” questions of life very suddenly held zero importance. There was only one real question. Did I want to live or not? There would be no room for ambivalence, no room for anything but a desperate drive to survive another day, at whatever cost. Anything less would likely lead to death.

surrender to the strident sunshine, it

we can download a ton of information onto a flash drive. We’ll be able to work out a way to read it later when we need it, but

Did you party too much and drop out?” “No, I got a philosophy degree.

It’s okay,” he said again. “I’m like you.” “What? What do mean, like me?” I asked. “Slow burn,” he responded.

The hot, stagnant air, only marginally cooler without the sun’s heat, draped us in its sticky blanket.

The upper middle-class cracker neighborhood ignored me, focused instead on its own pockets of human chaos. Four

Dan gave chase with his big, blue-collar hands grasping at my shirttail.

thought you went to college here. Did you party too much and drop out?” “No, I got a philosophy degree.” “Oh.” “I’ll get the guns.

I’ll tell them that my friend and I got mugged while we were walking in the park. Nobody is afraid of gay guys.

So fuck Dan. Fuck the police. Fuck the doctors. Fuck Jerome. And fuck the infected!

Sometimes, a half-bottle of breakfast tequila just isn’t enough to deal with the day’s reality.