The walking dead

 

You guessed it completely wrong; this story isn’t about contaminated corpses mutating into creatures without a soul, craving for fresh meat and warm blood. The following story is happening in a parallel universe, a universe peculiarly similar to ours, where the walking dead might be the person sitting next to you, your neighbor, your colleague, or your best friend!

A world where the walking dead might plainly and shortly be us!

Jad is a young ambitious man of twenty six years old. With brown eyes, dark hair, and handsome features, Mother Nature seemed to have put all its flawlessness and its glamour into the creation of this one individual. In his professional career, he was steadily yet progressively piercing his way to become a manager in a well-known company instead of his current mediocre job in back office.

Jad is dreaming big and holding high hopes for his future, but not only his. As misleading as it might sound, Jad is a father of two-year-old twin girls. His wife Leila to whom he was married for five years now, was his childhood best-friend. They grew up together, and at some point, they knew that they couldn’t share life with anyone else but each other. Leila worked at a small bakery store in the neighborhood. The couple’s salary combined was barely enough to cover all the modern life necessities. Jad knew but little about what was happening in the house after his leaving; his wife was taking care of the entire household and the girls as her Job was near their home and tolerably flexible.

On his way back home, Jad’s mind strays. There was some blank before his eyes, stained with thought about his daily tasks and the habitual monotone routine. His schedule as usual was stressfully crammed. In a typical day, Jad wakes up as early as 6h AM in the morning. He is always the first to exit the house without a proper breakfast, as a long hour of nauseous traffic was ahead of him. The minibus that picks him up every day was a worn vehicle which the maker seemingly forgot to equip it with shock absorbers. Thus, the faintest jolts or vibrations were strongly felt as an infernal thunder in the stomach. What a pleasant sensation to start the day with!

…………….

I, the writer of this story, paused, unable to think about the plot or the rest of this fiction!

Feeling so sleepy and tired, struggling to keep my eyes open so I could write something creative and inspiring. My day was a taxing one; they conceived an efficient system that succeeded to suck the last drop of energy out of your body. Nine hours of prison under a close watch from above, plus two hours of transport to make sure you end your day not as a human, but as a walking dead.

My brain is failing me, no matter how hard I try to resist and push myself to be ALIVE, but the walking dead system is brutally pulling me down. Why is this world so eager to turn its people into walking dead? Or why are we so feeble to accept such a life?

But I’m not surrendering; I will keep pushing until I find a way through, there must be a way through, otherwise, I’m as good as dead. I can’t continue taping anymore; my eyelashes are as heavy as a huge rock. Sleep is taking over; I feel nauseous and sad. I hate it.

………..

          Eight months later, we are back again to the office and continuous remote work is no more. I feel so tired today, a splitting headache and eyes craving to be closed; forever maybe! 

        This morning at 7.30 am, while waiting for the mini bus that’ll take me to work, I saw these little children sitting silently next to their mothers, looking around them with their sleepy little eyes, and they too are waiting for their yellow mini bus. The same model, only the colors change. 

          The resemblance was striking.

This world seems like a big ruthless factory, sending yellow buses early in the morning to take the children to a training center where they are skillfully shaped to fit a certain position, and then later on when they grow up, they send them white buses taking them this time to a labor center, where they have to work at least 8 hours and perform dull and meaningless tasks. 

Those buses are evil!

I feel trapped in a rut; I’m enslaved by my need for money. I have a purpose and I want to reach it, and although my goal is seemingly meaningful and not material at all, I struggle to endure this torture with patience. It’s deeply depressing to see hours and days of your precious life wasted on commuting to work, boring tasks, and sitting the whole day without being able to feel alive.

I hate waking up early in the morning. I love staying up late at night writing, reading, and dreaming. Only during these moments, I feel alive.

I’m extremely drained, so I will call it a day and give myself time to adjust and thoroughly consider my priorities. There is a way to make it work, there must be.