I, Zombie

Hours went by, thinking such circular thoughts. Gloria circled that tree, which she thought was an oak. She bumped into the others and took her turn scratching the rough bark. She clawed at the air and groaned at the nothing, secretly privy to the voiced fears and panicked whispers that drifted down from above.

And Gloria prayed for deliverance. She thought of that shoreline she had walked down hours before and wondered if turning toward the water, toward the thing she feared in that moment, may not have been the better choice. Wasn’t this her lot? Her life? Was this the lesson God was attempting to hammer home?

Gloria kicked through the dry leaves and mulled over the times she’d felt both trapped and safe. Trapped in marriage, even after the baby was taken from her, even after her husband was locked away. The sin of divorce was that frigid lake, and so she circled Carl for years and years, pawing at the empty space around her.

A job she hated, turning over rooms, making bed after bed, picking up scattered towels and restocking stolen toiletries. Every day, tiptoeing through wrecks that looked more like robberies than a night’s stay, dealing with creepy men who put signs out for service, but were still in there, sometimes a towel around their waists, pretending to be startled, sometimes wearing nothing at all. Men sent by the devil to harass her, tell her she was pretty when she knew better, offer her money for unspeakable things.

A job she hated, but change was the other way. Applications and learning something new were the icy deep.

The city was a funnel. Gloria looked around her, something she secretly did on the subway. All different colors, different backgrounds, all the accents. Ants drawn to honey, but they can’t get away from the city. They land with their parents or bring their own children, get that first job, learn to drive a cab or flip a room, and never leave.

This was her sin, Gloria thought. God had given her command of her feet and had set her on the shore of life, and she had chosen to live the least. She had always chosen to avoid her fears, had shrunk from the daunting and the risky. And what had her Savior done? Had he walked away from the challenge, or had he strolled across the water knowing he would not sink?

Gloria let out a frustrated gurgle, a prayer to Saint Anthony, the liberator of prisoners:

Tear down my prison walls. Break the chains that hold me captive. Make me free with the freedom Christ has won for me. Amen.

She prayed to Saint Leonard, the patron Saint of captives, slaves, and all those held against their will:

Pray for those like me in prison, St. Leonard. For those forgotten in prison, pray for them. Amen.

Gloria prayed for herself, for her own plights. She prayed for someone to grant her the courage. She prayed for deliverance, for rescue, for something to break her free of the cycle in which she’d long been trapped. She prayed that she could do it all over again, that she might head west and live in a small town, find a different job, a good man, try once more to start a family, to have a child or two or four. She prayed and prayed the same prayers, her words running out, forming small loops, memorized verse, begging and begging for release as she circled that tree, bumping into so many others, but giving little thought to them at all.

15 • Michael Lane

Michael’s balancing act came to an end, his good leg chewed away by the shotgun blast. He tipped forward, stumbling on the flopping lower half of his shin, which bent and twisted until his foot was pointing backward. His face struck the pavement, his discombobulated arms fluttering uselessly by his side, too uncoordinated to break his fall.

He waited for death. He waited for unconsciousness. His sister was there, bending down, reaching out a hand to him—but it was the fever of sobriety. It was a construct of the pain.

Screams came out as gurgles, bloody drool dripping onto the pavement, a flashback to a thousand nights spent hugging a toilet, the taste of bile in one’s mouth, the smell of urine, realizing he’d wetted himself in his stupor.

A new low. This was always his thought, every weekend in college getting smashed and regretting it, every Monday morning hung over in class, promising he’d never do it again. By Thursday, such promises were forgotten. By Saturday, he hated himself once more.

Michael’s limbs stirred. He screamed internally as hot steel was pressed to a dozen unnatural joints in his legs. His dumb physical self was trying to stand. His unthinking body was telling the rest of him, a friend who knew better, that he was good enough to walk.