Is This the Zombie Apocalypse?
I’m tired, emotionally, mentally, and physically. The fatigue has been growing for years, but it was given a super charge during the days leading up to the 2016 election, the most important election of my lifetime. My trepidation and social anxiety started to surge then and it’s not let up for a single day since. I watched the final days of Obama unfold even as there loomed a definite demon on the horizon.
I’m not referring to a single individual either.
Of course, the republican candidate was a threat, but what I couldn’t predict was how many people were struggling to find a political figure to latch on to as their messiah. Democrats were distracted with trying to reinvent their party even as the election drew nigh. Whereas, republicans were united in a way that most democrats refused to recognize. Emotions were running high in both parties …
Humans have a tendency to make important decisions based on emotional reactions not logic.
It all fell into place as a new kind of republican leader was born. Someone who wrote their own rules, changed their minds at the spur of the moment, and operated on the same emotional level as the American people. We were swept away with emotion. Both parties were ready to burn it all to the ground if they couldn’t get what they wanted. And what did they want? A messiah.
For those of us who wanted change, we woke up the next morning with this niggling fear that nothing would ever be the same again.
The other America is gone, probably for good. What we have in its place is a meaner world that functions almost entirely on rabid emotional reactions. As we continue to dismantle what’s left.
Oh, sure, we keep trying to fix one thing or another.
Maybe we should fix our roads, schools, and hospitals. Or how about our bridges and internet vulnerabilities? We talk — a lot — about climate change, the world of work, racism, LBGTQ issues, and inequality. Talk is easy.
The list of things that need our attention are as long as the road to Damascus, but nothing works.
Instead, strange things happen every damn day. We’re banning books by the hundreds. BOOKS! A bridge collapses and we ban another book. That book seems more important than the bridge. The next hospital gets inundated with patients and bomb threats against black universities break out because you know, our real problems are black universities not a broken heath care system. There’s another mass shooting but we protest masks. One saves lives and the other destroys lives, but we’ve lost all perspective. A new variant dominates while politicians take photos of themselves carrying weapons like that gun is going to save us?
Folks, it’s time to call it like it is.
America is in decline. Not a slow undetectable decline. It’s falling fast. There’s almost nothing left to protect. We’re the evil empire that loves war and profit and money and food and sex and perversions and violence. We are being destroyed from within. The zombie apocalypse is upon us. The speed at which we are destroying ourselves is picking up and soon it’ll all be over.
Will there be another civil war?
Heck we’ve been blowing one another up for decades now. This IS war. We’ve just become desensitized to self-inflicted pain. Instead, we cheer whenever one of our own is bitten right before our very eyes. When the war is over, we’ll have nothing left except our racism, hate and anger, a crumbling infrastructure, no allies, and even fewer institutions that define a great society.
It’ll all be gone.
Oh sure, we’ll piece together another kind of life and go on living, but it’ll be a far cry from what we could’ve had. Hell, it won’t even be as good as we had before we turned into the Walking Dead and resorted to cannibalism as a way to identify the winners. Winners take all in this crappy game. But what is the prize? The prize is a nation of broken institutions and scarcity. Scarcity of kindness and hope as we consume one another and every possible legitimate solution to our problems.
Maybe I’m just so weary that I can’t see the open door right in front of my face.
Maybe there’s a way out of this mess. Tomorrow, I could wake to find that my neighbors have also found the open door. We’ll go through the door together and come out on the other side in a world where I won’t need a small tribe of desperate survivors to protect me any longer. The zombies will be cured of the virus that has infected society. We’ll become a country of problem solvers and creative solutions.
But today, I’m exhausted.
I see dead people wherever I go. I’m worn out. I’m edgy. Suddenly, I realize one more thing. This is what it feels like to have no hope. This is it. I must snap out of it. A taste of reality can provide quite a jolt. I’ve got a granddaughter who deserves something better than this. I’m awake again. I know that I can’t give up.
Not yet. Not ever.
Teresa Roberts is a retired educator, author, world traveler, and professional myth buster. You can find her books on Amazon.
