Zombie Resurrection

or The Problems With Being Full of Shit

He told me this is how resurrection feels. Lit his cigarette and breathed in. I didn’t quite follow, but I’m slow picking up on things. Especially when they’re supposed to be deep. He looked at me like he wanted to show me something. I’ve seen the same face on my cousin’s kids when they show me their toys. He was going to show me his toy tractor.

I saw this crouch-rocket-riding douche bag two minutes after he was on in an accident. He was laying five feet away from me. Fucked up. Legs going every which way, like some crazy yoga. He was holding some woman’s hand, probably didn’t even know her. When I turned off the radio, I heard him moaning. ‘Oh God’ he’d say, sobbing. ‘Oh God it hurts’. That was the first real prayer I ever heard. That was a conversion moment—you know those alter-calls you religious types are always on about, that was a real one right there.

I just watched him smoke. He liked the attention. I was trying to decide if I thought all this was bullshit. That’s the hard thing with talking to people who are generally full of shit, when they say something that isn’t complete and utter bull shit, it’s difficult to tell. I could tell that he had rehearsed his story. And I think he was right on some level (about the conversion). The nearness of death. The moaning prayer. The life changing moment. I’ve heard sermons and testimonies say about the same thing—but I still thought he was full of shit, and I didn’t feel like nodding or giving him the impression that I was moved by his story. I didn’t want to give him any satisfaction. So I deflected the flow—with my own soliloquy that I had rehearsed as well.

I always pictured resurrection like a zombie movie. All us starchy-church-types digging ourselves up from the grave. Glorified-glowing hands reaching up through cemetery lawns. That’s why I want to be buried shallow and in a cardboard box—so I can be the first one out. And if all this bible stuff is bull, at least if an actual zombie apocalypse happens I’ll have an easier time getting out, and get first dibs on the good brains.

He wasn’t impressed. Looked at me like I was full of shit. And I was.