Adventure Is Not Always So Amusing

I - and a few others in my adventurous party - slowly approach a desert city, in awe of the towering walls and open khaki-colored houses on top.

In a place some people might call a church, a monstrous wasp or mantis is suspended bottom-down by its thorax. The mottled brown exoskeleton blends with the intricately carved teak walls and the marbled flooring. The insect's head, far above, is invisible in the dimly flickering gas lamplight.
The shape of the abdomen causes condensing water to run to the point, where a large piece of papyrus has been spread underneath. Suspended like a pendulum, the insect wriggles and sways, forming intricate designs on the paper depicting each of four parts of our quest that will lead us to the ultimate treasure. The swirls and scribbles dissipate quickly, so we hastily memorize the next step. We hurry out of the room, afraid that we might soon become a meal.


In a strange house, everything is in shades of blue and grey. I glance out the window - we are perched on top of a hill - the town below glows with the aura of what must be death. I come to the conclusion that I am in an Alfred Hitchcock movie, and that the killer will soon be arriving here. Waiting, I lounge about in the kitchen as passing cars illuminate the refrigerator in locomotive bars of light.
A young, unpreposessing man steps from the bedroom closet. Genially, he asks me if I want some coffee, I decline, but he makes me some anyway, then pours some for himself.
"You don't have to kill all these people," I say. "It's just a movie."
He raises his eyebrows and grimaces into his coffee cup. "Obviously you know very little."

Zombies!

I ride my bike up a giant spiral ramp in the mall-like east end of the Art building. I stop near the top, where some of my future classmates stop at an espresso stand. As I stand there the bike almost rolls off the edge of the ramp, as it has no guardrail, but I keep my balance and ride forward. I have difficulty turning the pedals over to the proper side, because it hurts to kick them in bare feet.

Later, I have to get out of the Art building because zombies have started invading. The basement has partially collapsed and become a cramped, uneven tunnel. I run into Eric from Solstice and point him in the direction of the exit, but I continue deeper into the depths of the building. For some reason I have to get back to the east end, although I know there are many zombies there. I take the elevator to the first floor and find someone I recognize. Together we push open the colossal wooden doors to the Church that has taken the place of the library. A zombie plays the organ at the opposite end of the hall, and many others wander about hissing dumbly.

Outside in the Quad the sun sets as I walk along the path, surrounded by people I should know. They are all dressed in black to play capture the flag, and run about to tag the zombies surrounding us. I try to tell them how stupid this is, and not to look them in the eyes, but as I watch Gracie come face-to-face with a zombie, and in the dusk her eyes begin to glow red out of a darkened face. In my peripheral vision I see more red dots start to glow in the darnkness. I go back the way I came, realizing I any attempt to save another of my friends would be useless. I take a right by the Music building, but stop near a blooming cherry tree as several of my shadowy, red-eyed friends surround me. I climb into the tree and try to leap off of one of the branches and take off flying in mid-air, but apparently my flying capabilities are limited to slowly floating upward from an immobile position on the ground. I quickly get up and face the crowd with diverted eyes, but this time in my peripheral vision they brighten. I look up and can distinguish the faces of Josh Morris, Brian Le, and others. I thought it was already night, but when I look at the sky I see there was just a cloudy sunset, and a little bit of day is still left, but the threadbare blanket of clouds is about to cover the horizon again. I run.

I come to a deserted highrise building in the center of town with my friend. There is no sign of life, human or zombie, just many, many pigeons. We decide the highrise is the safest place to stay because zombies can't climb stairs (or something), and all of the panic-crazed humans fled long ago. We decide to climb up the outside of the building just to be safe.

Quietly we climb past ten or more of the paritally destroyed first stories, deciding we need to get higher to feel safe. We decide the next one would be acceptable, but as we haul ourselves up to the balcony railing we hear voices. We cling to the egde and carefully peer over. There are two giant, fluffy, talking cats living in the apartment. The grey one sits in a patio chair reading a newspaper and sipping coffee. The orange one (the wife) asks her husband if he would like anymore lemonade to finish his breakfast. She walks out of the kitchen (upright), holding a pitcher of lemonade.
In a whisper I tell my shocked friend that when all of the humans left town or turned into zombies the cats must have taken over, because zombies don't care about cats. Without the repression and all of the hormones from eating human food they must have grown into more human-like creatures and taken over our lives. While they might be able to protect us, I reason that they are probably more likely to kill us to prevent us from attracting the destructive zombies, and because of their longheld hatred for the opressive masters.

Carefully, we climb upward, past three more stories of cat families until we reach the very top, deserted floor. We will have to be quiet, but there is enough food to sustain us for a little while. Just there is a massive crashing as the building collapses below us. Only our apartment survives destruction, and now sits on top of a giant pile of rubble. I think of all the dead giant cats underneath us. I don't have long to think as the door to the balcony crashes open and a horde of wild-eyed men and women rush across a bridge of rubble into the apartment. The man in front, dressed in a voilently colorful floral shit has his hands outstretched to strangle me.

Moral Dilemmas

I am independent from my family now; I decide to attend some sort of function at my old church, to see all the people that have forgotten me.
Standing in line for the bathroom, I allow several incontinent old women to cut ahead of me. When it is finally my turn, I enter a long yellow hallway with a toilet at one end. Another doorway opens onto the gathering hall; it does not have a lock. I close both doors and quickly take care of my business, hoping no one barges in on me. I am successful.
I procceed to the sanctuary. None of the lights are on, the colors seem faded and grey. I see an old friend sitting in a pew where the pulpit used to be. Sliding in behind her, I tell her, "I vant to suck your blood!" It seems to be appropriate for the situation, turns she turns and gives a welcoming smile. In a pew futher up sits another girl I haven't seen in years. In my absence, she has undergone a sex change and is now wearing only nordic beanies. She has her arm around another girl. She is mad at me, I can only assume because I missed her supposed birthday party. The first friend mutters under her breath to be nice.

After the service we scour the pews in the balcony for a siren (the mythical kind) of sorts. As soon as we approach her, she teleports to the next level up.






Later, I am transporting my pets from one location to another. A beautiful white kitten catches my attention, and I can't decide if I can put my mouse and my ant down to pet the kitten. I do so, and thankfully, they do not wander off. All three animals begin to form high-pitched gibberish, which I know will turn into real speech in the next week or so. In fact, it seems to be doing so faster than I had expected. I am relieved.