Home

Welcome to Fiction Friday. Every Friday I share with y’all a glimpse into the mind of Zach the Zombie and some of his friends. After the excitement of Zach’s entry into the City, I thought I’d share some very early sessions with Zach talking about history.

You know the drill–this is not really edited, and also these are three different but related conversations. I appreciate your grace and forgiveness for all the flaws and inconsistencies!

The storytellers try to tell us that we were different a long time ago, that we were those people in The Days When There Was Night. And I don’t mean “we” as a group. They say it was me. You. Arthur. Kennath. All of us.

The storytellers say that back when there was no Rot, we went to the same shelter every night with the same people. That we stopped when the night stopped and the Rot started. And that something with the Rot made it so we just don’t remember it.

I am pretty sure that wasn’t us.

Besides, they say that those people ended. All the time, one of them was ending. So if they all ended all the time, how could we possibly be them. We don’t end.  Never seen it.

So it’s all a lie.

Has to be.

***

You know those words you come across? The ones the storytellers seem to use a lot. The ones they think makes them sound smarter? Words that you can kind of tell maybe what they’re supposed to make you feel, but if someone asked you “what’s that mean” you can’t really explain it? No one can. Not even the guy that said it in the first place.

Home is one of those words.

It sounds like a word from the Days When There Was Night. It must be a word from then.

I guess it’s possible it’s a word from the City. But I’m pretty sure it’s our word too. Or it used to be.

During the Days When There Was Night, things weren’t the same as now.  they were really different.

First off, the storytellers say that people started and ended.

Crazy, right?

But that’s what they say. They also say that almost all of the people would stop doing stuff soon after the light in the sky stopped (which happened all the damn time….what an inconvenience that would be!). I guess since there wasn’t a light in the sky, they decided it was pointless to go on.  So they’d stop. That they actually went somewhere and fell down on purpose and stayed there. Sometimes for eight, nine hours at a time. Doing NOTHING.

Can you imagine?

They had rain shelters, but the storytellers say they were really different. They stayed in them when it wasn’t raining. They stayed in them when the sun was dark.

They ended animals and brought the flesh into their shelters and ate it. Can you believe that? I think the storytellers are making that part up. ’Cuz there’s no freakin’ way they did that.

Another really weird thing…They didn’t all find the best shelter they could when they needed one. No, it was different…they always went to the same one.  with the same people. And usually not very many people at all. Sometimes, they even went to one alone.

If I try to put it all together in my head, I think this is what they mean with the word Home.

But I’m not sure it really means the shelter. If it did, why didn’t they just say “shelter”? I mean, wouldn’t that be easier?

No…I think it had something to do with the other same people that were always at the same shelter.

But I don’t really get it. How can they possibly stand that?

***

They say the City has shelters that are different. The people in the City sometimes go back to the same one over and over again too.

But the City is really different about a lot of things. They say, anyway.