Undead Anonymous

my name is andy and I’m a survivor.

at least that’s what i’m supposed to say and think and believe.  but i can’t say it, i don’t think it, and the only thing i believe is that this is worse than anything i could have imagined.

just so you understand, here are the basic facts you need to know about what happened to me:

- i died in a car accident when my volkswagen passat slammed into a redwood tree at sixty miles per hour
- i reanimated three days later and walked away from my coffin, just like jesus, only without the halo and the all-expenses paid trip to heaven
- my left ear is mangled, my face looks like a jigsaw puzzle, and my vocal cords were so badly damaged that i have to wear a dry erase board around my neck to communicate
- my left arm is useless, the bones pulverized from my shoulder to my elbow, ending in a twisted claw that used to be my left hand, which makes using the shift key a pain in the ass
- my left ankle is broken and twisted at such an angle that my toes are pointing at my right foot, so when i walk i’m hunched forward and limping, one arm hanging useless, the quintessential, stereotypical zombie.  even if i wear a hoodie, i stand out like a vegetarian at a texas barbecue.

needless to say, halloween seems more fitting than it used to.  after all, it’s not like I need a costume anymore.

S. G. Browne here, founder of Undead Anonymous and author of Breathers: A Zombie’s Lament – a dark comedy about undeath through the eyes of an ordinary zombie named Andy Warner.  Andy would have been here to welcome you himself, but he’s currently undergoing his weekly formaldehyde treatment, which helps to slow down the process of decomposition.

Andy will appear frequently here, providing some insight into the struggles of being a zombie in a world ruled by the living.  Also known as Breathers.  He’ll also provide occasional words of wisdom on his dry erase board, which he has to use to communicate since his vocal cords were damaged in the accident.  Occasionally, I’ll chime in with my own insights and updates.  You’ll also hear from several of Andy’s friends, who are members of Undead Anonymous – the support group which Andy attends to help him deal with his new existence.

The basic premise behind Breathers is a question I asked myself when I originally sat down to write a short story about zombies:

Is it necrophilia if you’re both dead?

More to the point, I wondered what it would be like to reanimate from the dead into a society where you had no rights, no hope, and got carted off by Animal Control whenever you stayed out after curfew.

While I realize a significant proportion of zombie film and literature focuses on the undead as antagonists, there is a growing community of zombie sympathizers, so I hope you’ll appreciate the viewpoint presented here, with the zombie as hero.