Survivor: A Novel

Nobody lay awake at night wondering if the wheat they’d raised was truly happy and fulfilled being made into bread.

To stand here and try to fix her life is just a big waste of time. People don’t want their lives fixed. Nobody wants their problems solved. Their dramas. Their distractions. Their stories resolved. Their messes cleaned up. Because what would they have left? Just the big scary unknown.

Call me a sexual predator, but when I think of predators I think of lions, tigers, big cats, sharks. This isn’t so much a predator versus prey relationship. This isn’t a scavenger, a vulture, or a laughing hyena versus a carcass. This isn’t a parasite versus a host. We’re all miserable together. It’s the opposite of a victimless crime.

He opens his briefcase a crack and takes out a brown bottle. “Here,” he says, “take a couple Serenadons. These are the best antianxiety treatment ever invented.” They just don’t exist yet. “Just pretend,” he says, “for the placebo effect.” And he shakes two into my hand.

Since change is constant, you wonder if people crave death because it’s the only way they can get anything really finished.

“Actually, it’s awfully boring stuff. Anticipating the future based on the past. We might as well be an insurance company; nevertheless, it’s our job to make cult suicide look fresh and exciting every time around.”

Even getting munched on by zombies beats the idea that I’m only flesh and blood, skin and bone. Demon or angel or evil spirit, I just need something to show itself. Ghoulie or ghosty or long-legged beastie, I just want my hand held.

Not that I’m crazy or anything, I just want some proof that death isn’t the end. Even if crazed zombies grabbed me in some dark hall one night, even if they tore me apart, at least that wouldn’t be the absolute end. There would be some comfort in that.

Because the only difference between a suicide and a martyrdom