By Matthew Higgins
In the vast plethora of zombie fiction, utopian writing is strangely absent. Matthew Higgins rights that wrong.
The utopian fantasy of today’s people in the West, is to live in a zombie apocalypse like those from the golden age of Hollywood remakes.
Here, they can riteously battle the undead with acquired arms and looted ammo, drive quad bikes through abandoned showrooms and squat atop famous monuments.
They can drain countless car batteries, gorge on left over snacks and ride the amusement parks without having to wait in line.
Everything is in a state of transience, a warm shower can be enjoyed without the cost of environmental concern, and the primal needs for exercise and hunting things violently are nicely intwined with the intellectual wants for civility and order – by hijacking large armoured vehicles and spraying double fisted uzi rounds into hordes of the undead.
"Duty has become a fact of life freed from existential turmoil, and no one is for want of anything, not even walker’s crisps."
Sadly, these soft-headed delusions of zombie apocalypse reflect a grim contrast to the society which stands in place of them…
Following the months of the first zombie outbreak, the sensationalism in the media seemed hard to justify, given the lack of casualities involved, and the swift efficiency by which the military-industrial complex came to dispatch the threat within a matter of hours.
The same level of ineffective disorder might have transpired had a pride of giraffes escaped from a wildlife enclosure during rush hour.
But below the surface of crowds, could be sensed a lurking frustration...
A sinister disenchantment masquerading under the phony sentimental relief, for those who had kept relatively safe during the ‘disaster’.
“Thank goodness so few people got hurt.”
“It’s a good job they weren’t fast running one’s like the one’s you see in them films.”
These were the sorts of things one might typically overhear whilst sweeping cigarette butts off club balconies under the nautical twilight of ongoing civilised despair…
‘Zommunism’ became a homely internet punching bag, for keyboard commentators to pour their derision and self-doubt into, to distinguish themselves from older generations who foolishly abided the false promise of Zombie utopia on their flat screen dopamine devices.
Others claimed the suspicion of a false flag.
The wahhabis had since weaponised zombies as recyclable fodder for their suicide bombing campaigns; launching a novel pretext upon which the Eurasian heartland could be raped of natural resources and plagued by civilian deaths.
There were comments about those who had been supplying the zombies, and accusations about who the true zombies were, to bully those who could not identify such obvious facts as
“Nowhere in the Qu’aran does it provide any instructions on how to raise members of the unliving…”
And as conflicts reigned absurd across hotspots of geostrategic interest on the world map, things began to grow increasingly strange at home.
There was no denying that zombies were great for the economy, manipulated to perform tasks that were unlikely to meet the standards of the native unemployed.
But protests aiming to thwart the spread of the undead had been rejected by the courts, who insisted that ‘subhuman legislation’ should primarily protect the sovereign rights of private ownership.
The doctrinal thesis of the mainstream media held that, without zombified labour, the economy would simply tank. There would be too much competition from other industrialised nations harnessing the effects of a zombified workforce to maximise their GZP (gross zombie produce).
"There was no denying that zombies were great for the economy"
You can imagine the disappointment of this ‘strong and stable’ apocalypse.
The threat of pandemic loomed not from the savagery of overnight carnage, quietly longed for in the dreams of ordinary citizens; but due instead, to the bumbling inertia of beauracratic injustice.
What had happened to good ol’ fashioned ‘shooting zombies’ in the face and gorging on snickers in the hands of these lawyers and politicians?
Where was the comaradery to ease all this suffering and pain?
But there was none.
No one with an ounce of civilised belonging in their hearts would ever personally identify with these perverse suicidal longings, of tearing the economy to shreds and violently purging the undead with valiant sex appeal; not unless they were joking among friends, ironically – if insincerely – to flatter such inconceivable thoughts.
To be continued… here: https://radicalartreview.com/2017/07/06/cyst-and-disease-zommunism-part-2/
Photos by http://patjacksonpodium.blogspot.co.uk/2013_08_01_archive.html and http://pinstake.com/shaun-of-the-dead/http:%7C%7Cwww%5Etasteofcinema%5Ecom%7Cwp-content%7Cuploads%7C2013%7C08%7Cshaun-of-the-dea%5Ejpg<img class=”alignnone size-full wp-image-141″ and http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-politics-31040301 and https://marcelopellegrini.wordpress.com/2013/12/05/hundreds-of-zombies-take-control-of-london/