Happy sunset, scrap-pals. Give a nice and warm welcome to the first Interference, a kind of post that’s completely unrelated to the usual topics I talk in this blog. For the first instance of this series—can I call it series?—I decided to share a short story I wrote seven years ago (you may have alread seen this in my old blog, gianlucaforcolin.wordpress.com).
At the time, I was working on my university thesis, which consisted in the DNA analysis of different enologic yeast strains. Tough stuff. Even boring. Honestly, I couldn’t care less. All I wanted to do at the time was travelling and writing; but since I wasn’t a bachelor yet and therefore I was stuck in Italy, all I could do was writing. This is one of my very first attempts and, although it’s not perfect, I still cherish it as a memento of who I am: a crazy scatterbrain who has something to share with the world.
The enologist Herbert Milletbread takes refuge in the winery, between the hundred-gallon fermentation tanks, keen on the slightest noise. Herbert’s hearing sense is so sharp that his friends call him Parabolic-Ears-Herbert… or at least, they used to.
The screams have ceased, now; silence lurks in the entire building. His heart sinks like a stone in a pit. He would gladly mourn his colleagues and friends, even if just for a few seconds. But there’s no time for that, for in this very moment his colleagues and friends are just blood-thirsty, animated corpses.
Technically speaking: zombies.
Herbert has read the books about them. He has watched the movies. He knows that when you’re a zombie the cortex of your brain goes to shit, along with your experiences and memories. But as he considers these consolidated statements, a new idea creeps in his mind: what if zombies were attracted to the memories of the living, rather than their mere containers? He smiles and silently praises himself. Herbert is a great thinker, so great his friends call him NERDbert. He should make a note somewhere, so that he can think about as soon as he’s safe. But since there’s no time for that, right now, he makes a mental note that he write the note down.
Herbert can hear the zombies moan through the canteen’s door, hungry like cops without donuts. They’re here! How’s that possible? Perhaps the zombies can sniff the scent of the living! It’s a credible hypothesis: no one ever heard of a zombie who cannot smell. Actually, the chances of Herbert losing his own sense of smell are higher, being continuously exposed to carbon dioxide from the maceration tanks. Inhaling carbon dioxide can burn your nose like gasoline… It’s so much fun!
But there’s no time to contemplate his favorite hobby. The zombies will soon breach the wall – and he still has nothing to defend himself with! Why is his brain still deviating his focus from the zombie apocalypse? If his boss Acapulco Aranzulla was here, Herbert would be armed and ready by now. Acapulco used to say he’s a good-for-nothing scatterbrain, only able to smoke his stupid mint-flavored cigarettes… although he was wrong about the cigarettes: his Dromedary Greens aren’t stupid at all, to begin with. He was jealous because Herbert wouldn’t tell him where to buy them.
Herbert rummages in his pockets, and sighs when he realizes he left them on the laboratory’s table, beside the beakers to test the acidity level in the must. Those cigarettes have the power to calm him like no other. Whenever he smokes one, he becomes as calm as the Tibetan monk he met at the Venice train station… how long has it been, now?… Like, four years ago? Oh my God, what an enlightening experience! Too bad Herbert’s a shy guy. So many questions swirled in his head, like: “aren’t you cold wearing that single robe all the time? I mean, Tibet is cold, right? Otherwise yaks wouldn’t be that furry. Can you float while you’re meditating? If Buddhism professes the elimination of all earthly temptations, food included… why is Buddha so fat?”
A voice suddenly interrupts his internal monologue: ‘That is no Buddha, but Taoist god Budai!’ Herbert turns around to face the mysterious speaker, but nobody’s there to be found.
Instead he watches the canteen’s walls melting before him, like gorgonzola in an overcharged microwave. Long rails carve the pavement, and a departures and arrivals board sprouts on a concrete pillar. Finally, the orange board lights project a kaleidoscope on the ground, twisting and coiling until it becomes a human figure wrapped in an equally orange robe.
Herbert’s mouth drops as he finally recognizes the man in front of him. ‘You’re the Tibetan monk I’d met in Venice!’
‘Not exactly’, says the monk. ‘I am your conscience, and this is just the form you have subconsciously bestowed me.’
Herbert looks around himself. They’re standing on a train platform, and thousands of wagons run on both sides, like paper planes in the summer wind. ‘Is this my mind?’ Herbert asks.
‘Exactly.’ His conscience points his finger at the running trains. ‘Every day, your thoughts pass through this station, leaving a sign in your memory and affecting your personality.’
‘Why am I here? Why am I not in the real world, looking for a way to escape from those freaking zombies?’
The monk shrugs. ‘You are the daydreamer. You decided to get in here yourself.’
Herbert feels as though a pump has drained blood and energy out of his body. ‘So what other people say about me is true: the zombies are breathing down my neck, and I still keep hiding in my own world… I’m just a good-for-nothing scatterbrain, aren’t I? Maybe I’m too immature to survive this world.’
‘Despite your immaturity you are still here, alive and breathing. And where there is life there is hope.’ His smile shimmered in the sun of Herbert’s imaginary world. ‘Do not give in now to what people say, although sometimes it is easier than accepting your own nature.’
‘My own… nature?’
‘You are different, Herbert. Your head is always in the clouds because, from the bottom of your heart, you want to be like this. Be strong now, and give a nice shower to those bloody corpses out there.’
‘You keep talking in riddles– what do you mean by that?’
‘I am your conscience, Herbert.’ The enologist could swear his beautiful smile has now morphed into a wicked grin. ‘You know exactly what I mean.’
In the same way he came, Herbert is flung back to reality; the zombies have crossed the gap in the wall, and are now staggering towards him. But Herbert has an idea. He takes a four-inch flexible pipe, attaches an end to the lower valve of a cistern and a metal beak on the other. He waits for them in a corner, making sure he could only be approached from one direction. ‘Hi there’, he shouts to the monstrous beings, which are only a few steps away from him. ‘Today’s lesson is about fluid pressure!’
As soon as he opens the cistern valve, a powerful jet of Cabernet Franc floods the room. Herbert screams on top of his joy and excitement, as the horde slams against the wall, producing the gory sound of squished meat and broken bones. The more zombies cross the breach, the more fall under his weapon, until they stop coming. Herbert howls a triumphant yahoo, then makes a mental note to add a new nickname in his curriculum: Herbert the Zombie-Drunker.