Undead Anonymous

Seeker asks:

What have you learned from being undead that might help a breather whose life hasn’t been going so well?

Well, Seeker, I guess the main thing I’ve learned is that no matter how bad you think you have it, there’s always someone who’s worse off than you.

While my left arm is mangled and more or less useless, at least I have all of my appendages, unlike Tom, who had his right arm stolen by a bunch of fraternity pledges.  It’s hard enough being a card-carrying member of the undead, decomposing and having to fend off maggots and wasps and carrion beetles, but to have to deal with the embarrassment of having your arm stolen and the visual reminder of your empty arm socket, well, that’s just adding insult to injury.  Plus it makes it hard to keep your balance.

But if taking solace in the misfortune of others doesn’t work for you, then repeat the following affirmations:Never Give Up, Believe In Yourself, and Hope Is Not A Four-Letter Word.

Thanks for the question, Seeker.  I hope things start looking up for you soon.

The first question of the new year comes from a Breather with the handle of Really Morbidly Curious, who asks:

I see that (for zombies) believing in God is kinda a no-brainer, but what about Buddhism?  Can zombies benefit from the Buddhist mindfulness practices?

Well, on the one hand, the undead have a lot of time to sit around, so I suppose we don’t really have any excuse for not meditating and thinking about our existence and what it all means.  To try to free ourselves from the desire to be human again, from the desire to regain the lives that we lost.  But it’s kind of tough to meditate when you’re being pelted with rotten tomatoes or dragged off to the SPCA.  Or when you can hear your parents constantly arguing about whether or not you should be sold off to a research facility.

But meditation aside, as far as the whole Karma thing goes, I definitely didn’t create enough bad karma in my former life to come back as a member of the living dead.  The whole cycle of suffering and rebirth?  My existence is suffering.  And the biggest problem with the concept of rebirth, of going through a succession of lifetimes as one of many possible forms of sentient life, is that I don’t think Buddhism had the living dead in mind as one of the forms.  Technically, we’re the end of the line.  We’ve died.  We’re supposed to have moved on.  Instead, we’re trapped in these decaying, mutilated shells of flesh, wondering if we’ll meet our end either by dismemberment, disintegration, or decapitation.

As for the Buddhist principle that all suffering is caused by attachment and desire…I still have an attachment to my prior existence and a desire to not have to worry about whether or not someone’s going to set me on fire as part of a fraternity scavenger hunt.  So I guess I’m not quite enlightened yet.

But I’d like to meet the Dalai Lama.

apologies for taking a while to post.  i was incarcerated at the spca for taking a walk on sunday in front of a church, which was not only breaking one of the undead commandments but offensive to the pious breathers in attendance.

which brings us to this week’s question from hippigoth, who asks:

do you keep in touch with your former (living) friends/relatives?  and if so, how have those relationships changed?  difficulty making conversation around the table over the holidays?

my breather friends have all developed a convenient case of amnesia that wiped away all traces of the friendships we shared before my reanimation.  occasionally i see them when i’m out shuffling along the street to one of the undead anonymous meetings and when i do, they always look away or cross to the other side of the street.  but at least they never shout out slurs or throw expired food products at me.

relatives?  i live with mom and dad in their wine cellar, which i guess proves that you never stop being a parent, even when your son comes back from the dead.  though i can’t say there’s a whole lot of parental affection.  dad constantly complains about the stench of my rotting flesh while mom screams and sprays me with lysol whenever i get too close, which never happened when i was alive.  so yeah, i guess you could say things have changed.

and as for difficulty making conversation around the table over holidays…you have no idea.  first of all, it’s tough to make conversation when your vocal cords are damaged beyond repair and you have to wear a dry erase board around your neck to communicate.  as for the thanksgiving dinner, as the meal went on and the turkey began to look alot like me, well let’s just say mom and dad kind of lost their appetites.

keep the questions coming.  until next time, this is andy warner, recently reanimated corpse, signing off.

this week’s question comes from jim, who writes:

i am newly undead, but unfortunately i was a floater and am concerned about possible occurrences of sloughage.  can you provide advice on how i can either avoid such a thing or perhaps suggest a workaround for the mess?

just to clarify for those not up to speed on the terminology, a floater is a corpse that’s been in the water for an extended period of time.  and sloughage occurs when liquid from the deteriorating cells of a corpse gets in between layers of skin and loosens them.  sometimes, the skin of an entire hand will come off.  as the process continues, giant sheets of skin can peel away from the body.

this is also often referred to as skin slip.

jim doesn’t mention how long he was in the water, but that shouldn’t have any bearing on the possibility or the severity of sloughage.  the main factor with skin slip has to do with how long you were dead and whether or not you were embalmed prior to reanimation.  formaldehyde will help to slow down the process of decomposition, keeping those pesky leaking cells in check.  of course, if autolysis, or self-digestion, is well under way prior to reanimation, it’s only a matter of time before your fingertips start to look like they’re sheathed in rubber.

my advice is that if you notice any loose flaps of skin, don’t pick at them.  that will only make the problem worse.  and don’t bite your fingernails.  that’s just asking for trouble.

this week’s question comes from a breather in california who asks:

do zombies itch?

yes, most definitely.  zombies do itch.  not only do we have to deal with the discomfort of suppurating wounds and ingrown stitches, but there’s the whole hygiene issue to consider.  no amount of head and shoulders is going to improve the condition of a gradually decaying scalp.  and zombie’s foot is so common among the not so recently reanimated that tinactin has become the number one selling product for breathers who have a member of the undead living with them.

in addition, zombies can itch from psoriasis, hemorrhoids, and jock itch to formaldehyde allergies, anal leakage, and sloughage.  and i’m not even going to mention the discomfort of a maggot infestation.

if you’ve never had a fresh crop of maggots crawling around beneath the surface of your skin, then you probably wouldn’t understand