Christopher T. Miller observer :: storyteller :: technologist

Now, look, you.

You’ve got a lot of god­damn gall knock­ing on the metaphor­i­cal door while I’m in this head­space. Two nights with lit­tle sleep; two days in which liba­tions were enjoyed vig­or­ously, and now you show up with ideas in hand.

I call shenani­gans, ma’am. I truly do.

You never drift by when I am sit­ting, wait­ing, recep­tive, star­ing at a blank screen grit­ting my teeth with effort, will­ing the words to man­i­fest. Oh no. You show up when I’m relax­ing on the couch after an after­noon of glut­to­nous activ­i­ties, while I am sink­ing into a torpor.

Not tonight, dear. I have a headache.

Bah. You’d bet­ter be here when I wake up.

Jimmy waited by the car. His prox­im­ity mon­i­tor was vibrat­ing on his wrist and he knew they would be get­ting close, but he was frozen in place, watch­ing them.

They approached slowly over the rise; row upon row of the sham­bling dead. Vacant eyes were star­ing out of decay­ing faces, lank hair and open wounds par for the course. They moved slowly down the embank­ment toward the high­way where Jimmy stood.

In his ear, a voice. “Are you ready, Private?”

They were less than fifty feet from him now. Some started to sniff the air, to catch wind of the warm flesh beneath Jimmy’s Kevlar body­suit. Jimmy reached into his pocket and with­drew the small black box with the shiny red button.

“Ready,” he sub­vo­cal­ized. “You have eyes on this?”

The voice in his ear responded, “Affir­ma­tive. Acti­vate at will.”

With his other hand, he removed a set of from earplugs from his vest pocket and fit them snugly into his ears.  He waited.

Forty feet.

Thirty.

When they reached twenty-five feet, Jimmy pressed the but­ton and dove away from the car. The auto­matic win­dows rolled down and the high-powered speak­ers in the back seat clicked on with a thun­der­ous pop and a loud hiss.

The zom­bies, still focused on the car, con­tin­ued to move forward.

Then.…music.  Horns. A slow intro, then a woman’s voice, singing:

“Why do birds sud­denly appear.…every time.…you are near…?”

The zom­bies stopped, then began to sway back and forth slowly to the tempo of the music. Their eyes turned toward the sky, their mouths opened…low groans ris­ing in volume.

“Just like me.…they long to be…”

Then, as the singer reached the cho­rus, the whole pack of undead sang as one,

“CLOSE TO YOOOOOUUUUU.…“

Love finds its voice in the small things.

It is easy to find the dif­fer­ences between us, but it is the sim­i­lar­i­ties that bind us, hold us, make us who we are. They are strong but sub­tle, eas­ily drowned out by the blare of daily life.

When the world is spin­ning, when you find your­self unsure, when you can feel the dis­tance, reach out. Hold hands. Breathe together in the silence. Feel the dis­tance close.

Have faith in the small things.

I know what you’re think­ing. It’s long past the time of day when I usu­ally post. You think I didn’t write any­thing today. HA! I just wrote this, and I think it should count. Nyah, Nyah. And with that, I leave you with this thought. Have a great week­end, all.