The Web

Nearsighted hunchbacks dimly pass the time

Watching the victories and failures of

Liquid crystal denizens. Watching all

Across the meaningless distances spanned

By gold filaments and fiber optics.

Distances are eliminated while

Voids greater and lasting fill their spaces.

The crisscrossing wires wrap around the globe

And trap the earthbound daughters and sons of

Spiders who spun too much web to escape.

As if leaving was on their minds – eyes

That cannot see through flimsy manmade screens

Cannot dream of higher and further things.

So hunching to their screens they keep their watch

As all around them the void thickens in

Its emptiness. Rampant webs of  purblind

Spinners indiscriminately catch prey.

Whether bright-eyed youth or graying matrons,

Intellectual or professional,

All the quick will become mere spectators

Within the spreading demon-weave dragnets.

The quick and the dead will be difficult

To distinguish in the encompassing

Torpor. “As it should be!” says our fey foe,

“For my victory is achieved when great

And small children of men do naught but lie.”

Welcome to Zombieland

This is not your typical matinee horror in a dark and moldy theatre

You’re not running from red-eyed, blood-vomiting corpses

You’re not carrying a double-barreled shotgun

Blasting the disfigured heads off of the people you once knew

You are not the lone survivor

Standing helpless but triumphant on a highway

Blemished with the husks of cars and the stains of what once were people

Welcome to Zombieland

Row number 6 seat 6

Rotting like one of the gangrenous boil-covered zombies

Oh, but you don’t look like them

Your caked-on makeup or your bath of cologne

Your skanky Guess clothes or preppy Hollister

Covers the fecal mass of festering tissue within

Welcome to Zombieland

Forced to do the bare minimum in your 9 to 5

Zoning out in the class you didn’t pay for

Returning like a drone the job you hate

And talking robotically to the people you loathe

Coming home dragging feet to the door

To the family and friends you take for granted

Pull up a chair 

And stare until your eyes are gritty from forgetting to blink

Welcome to Zombieland

Sit 

And watch like a drooling catatonic 

The dim aura of blue from screens fills the lightless rooms

Computers and TVs

Theatres and cell phones

ATM’s and iPods

Screens, Screens, Screens, Screens

They seem to shelter but their flimsy protection is bound to break

Allowing the moths and rust and thieves to break in and steal

Look deep into the gilded mirror!

Bloodshot eyes and sallow heliophobic skin

Lurching legs aimlessly carried by appetites

Babbling and moaning in an unintelligible dialect

Blatantly unaware of the crumbling world around

Lounging oblivious in apathetically strewn filth

And sometimes in reasonless fits of passion

We gather in groups and perform unspeakable acts of violence on each other

Welcome to Zombieland

The Average Man

So I know this guy and he is average. I mean he is the epitome of the word average. He isn't bad, he isn't good. He is forgettable, and regrettably, normal. He is about 25 or somewhere around there. This is what this guy does: He works for a temp agency at a poster factory or something along those lines. He works there for 8 hours a day making less than I do at my summer job. He comes home (to his parent's home) and he eats and plays World of Warcraft.

Now that's not all this guy does. Like I said; hes average not bad. He goes to church, he volunteers, he lives an unremarkable existence. Now I don't know why this bothers me so much but it does. He has no drive, no goals in life, and no problem with that. When I ask him about it he says he's comfortable where he is at. 'Yeah, I'd be comfortable if I still lived at home with my Mom cooking me meals,' is what immediately comes to mind. Seriously though? Where will he be in 5 or 10 years? Still working for a temp agency? Still living at home? Yeah, It might be comfortable but that's not a good thing.

People seem to think that all they desire in life is comfort and that it creates happiness but that's wrong. That's false; comfort will only take you so far. Look at many of the Hollywood celebrities and sports celebrities: They have all the means to make their life as comfortable as possible. Yet many of them crash and burn or fizzle out. You know why? Because people don't just want a sense of comfort, they want something more than that; they want purpose.

My friend may be comfortable but what is his purpose? Is he useful, helpful, loved, loving? Where is he going? Where has he been? I can answer those last two: not far. The only way a person can progress, learn, love, understand, communicate is to leave your comfort zone at some point.

So yeah friend, you are comfortable at home and you are making your small differences in society; your little purpose. But what purpose is out there waiting for you to take it? What chances are you missing out on by staying at home and doing what is comfortable. Leave the country, leave your province, leave your city and for God's sake leave your comfort zone.

- F.L.