can't imagine a sorrow more profound than losing one's child. Something deep inside that woman, nestled in the reptile part of her brain, recognized the scope of her loss. It may not have even been her own kid she was toting around with her, it could have been anyone's. That, somehow, seems even worse; that she could have felt such a deep need for her lost offspring that she would find a replacement.
Even as I shot her, the look on her face transformed from despair right into beastly hunger.
The assorted mementos in front of me just don't do justice to that. None of them convey the dark mixture of pity and rage that we have for the dead outside our walls. No movie, comic book, or novel ever managed to get it right. What we live with every day; the fear, the worry, the hope, the moments of happiness. I don't blame fiction for missing the mark, because until The Fall happened, it was all speculative.
Even though I write this blog most days and am living through the actuality of the zombie apocalypse, words aren't enough. Rather, the right ones just don't exist to really record with any accuracy the mood of our daily lives. It's something that I struggle with often, and I don't think I'll ever get to the point where I can capture it perfectly.
I'll leave them there. As reminders go, my little collection is a valuable one. Looking at it, I will always keep fresh the memories of what I thought we would face, and the knowledge of what really is out there. I will remember our mistakes, and strive each day not to repeat them. I'll see the covers of the graphic novels and DVD's and know that once, there was such a place as a world where safety was the norm, and monsters were fun things. Evil was easily consumed in ten minutes to two hours, and guns never ran dry.
I'll look up every morning and remember the cost of our innocence. The price of our lessons learned.
Friday, April 1, 2011
Ice Age
Posted by Josh Guess
I'm going to try to keep it short this morning, because there's a lot of makeup work to do today. We've been having some pretty dramatic fluctuations in the weather lately, but the need to get a lot of our seeds and sprouts in the ground made us take the risk of a hard frost.
We'd hoped that we had managed to avoid that, but this morning the ground was (and still is) covered in a thick mantle of the stuff. There are people out right now in force, trying to do everything they can to save what we've planted. We're lucky, really, because much of what we've got in the ground right now is cold weather food, meant to be planted early. About thirty percent of it, though, isn't. Which means a lot of scrambling about, trying to determine what we'll lose and what will live.
I'm taking Becky out with me today. She's going to play the part of personal assistant since I've got my trainees busy with other things, as well as being my second set of eyes for zombies, since we'll be out in the open. Becky has been quiet the last few days, not really wanting to leave the house. So far I've avoided giving her a work assignment, since she's still recovering from the arduous trip here. Given how well she handled her liquor over the weekend, I'm guessing she's able to work.
The problem is, I want to utilize her skills. She's got a lot of knowledge floating around in that massive brain of hers, but her sharpest talent is keeping people alive and putting them back together. She's reluctant to take a spot in our clinic, though, because we're flush with staff there, and she's got some...issues with providing any kind of medical care at present. Just talking about it sets her trembling, and from what I can gather that's due to her terrible journey here. I can't imagine how hard it was for her, trying to keep so many companions alive on the way to the compound, only to lose every last one.
Some took infection from wounds despite her best efforts. Others from trauma she couldn't mend. I think her experiences
Even as I shot her, the look on her face transformed from despair right into beastly hunger.
The assorted mementos in front of me just don't do justice to that. None of them convey the dark mixture of pity and rage that we have for the dead outside our walls. No movie, comic book, or novel ever managed to get it right. What we live with every day; the fear, the worry, the hope, the moments of happiness. I don't blame fiction for missing the mark, because until The Fall happened, it was all speculative.
Even though I write this blog most days and am living through the actuality of the zombie apocalypse, words aren't enough. Rather, the right ones just don't exist to really record with any accuracy the mood of our daily lives. It's something that I struggle with often, and I don't think I'll ever get to the point where I can capture it perfectly.
I'll leave them there. As reminders go, my little collection is a valuable one. Looking at it, I will always keep fresh the memories of what I thought we would face, and the knowledge of what really is out there. I will remember our mistakes, and strive each day not to repeat them. I'll see the covers of the graphic novels and DVD's and know that once, there was such a place as a world where safety was the norm, and monsters were fun things. Evil was easily consumed in ten minutes to two hours, and guns never ran dry.
I'll look up every morning and remember the cost of our innocence. The price of our lessons learned.
Friday, April 1, 2011
Ice Age
Posted by Josh Guess
I'm going to try to keep it short this morning, because there's a lot of makeup work to do today. We've been having some pretty dramatic fluctuations in the weather lately, but the need to get a lot of our seeds and sprouts in the ground made us take the risk of a hard frost.
We'd hoped that we had managed to avoid that, but this morning the ground was (and still is) covered in a thick mantle of the stuff. There are people out right now in force, trying to do everything they can to save what we've planted. We're lucky, really, because much of what we've got in the ground right now is cold weather food, meant to be planted early. About thirty percent of it, though, isn't. Which means a lot of scrambling about, trying to determine what we'll lose and what will live.
I'm taking Becky out with me today. She's going to play the part of personal assistant since I've got my trainees busy with other things, as well as being my second set of eyes for zombies, since we'll be out in the open. Becky has been quiet the last few days, not really wanting to leave the house. So far I've avoided giving her a work assignment, since she's still recovering from the arduous trip here. Given how well she handled her liquor over the weekend, I'm guessing she's able to work.
The problem is, I want to utilize her skills. She's got a lot of knowledge floating around in that massive brain of hers, but her sharpest talent is keeping people alive and putting them back together. She's reluctant to take a spot in our clinic, though, because we're flush with staff there, and she's got some...issues with providing any kind of medical care at present. Just talking about it sets her trembling, and from what I can gather that's due to her terrible journey here. I can't imagine how hard it was for her, trying to keep so many companions alive on the way to the compound, only to lose every last one.
Some took infection from wounds despite her best efforts. Others from trauma she couldn't mend. I think her experiences
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