Copyright Resilience
FIRST ANCHOR: Tensions continue to rise in the Middle East, where aid to key population centers is once again being blocked as casualties climb. SECOND ANCHOR: The UN Climate Summit has ended in deadlock with no agreement on emissions targets. THIRD ANCHOR: On Wall Street, the Dow industrials and S&P 500 fell slightly, while the Nasdaq showed signs of modest gains. SECOND ANCHOR: And tonight, disturbing reports are emerging of a new virus with severe neurological side effects. Doctors describe paradoxical symptoms : total apathy mixed with intense cravings. FIRST ANCHOR: Reports of contagion continue to spread worldwide. Major cities have converted stadiums into medical facilities as doctors struggle to keep up. Health officials are urging strict isolation - even from loved ones. REPORT FROM WOMAN ON STREET: My husband came home. He was foaming at the mouth! I never seen him like this. He ate everything in the fridge. But it wasn’t enough. He looked at me with these eyes. He came at me. I hit him with a bat. I had to. I managed to barricade him in the bathroom. He’s still there now. It’s so awful! FIRST INFLUENCER: Wake up people! This whole thing is a total hoax! Don’t believe a word coming out of the CDC right now. It’s all lies to infect your mind. SECOND INFLUENCER: You guys, this whole thing is a blessing in disguise. My cousin got it and he lost 20 pounds in just one week. He says he’s never been more at peace. THIRD ANCHOR: The CDC is now saying… there is no virus. In a post on social media earlier today, the head of the CDC wrote, “my bad.” SECOND ANCHOR: Everything is great. The federal government has shut down all medical facilities nationwide. Everyone can go back to normal. FIRST ANCHOR: That’s right. There is nothing to worry about. We now turn to our new segment featuring Davis the dancing dog! [intro theme music] Welcome to Human Nature Odyssey. I’m Alex Leff. FIRST INTERVIEW A: [calling from another room] Hey! Q: Yeah? [shuffling bags then walking into room] A: [voice becoming clearer as Q steps into the room] If you’re hungry I got a bag of bagels. Q: From the store? A: No, no, don’t worry. You were right. There were too many of them at Bagel Boss. These are from the dumpster out back. [handing over a bagel] Q: Ok good. [taking a bite] Thanks. A: For sure, roomie. Where are you headed? Another scavenging trip? Q: Actually no, I- I’m moving out today. A: What? Not next month? Q: No, I wanna get going while the weather is so shitty. A: Dang, dude. I gotcha. There won’t be as many on the roads. It’s funny, I always thought zombies would only come out at night, something like that. But they love good weather. Q: Yeah, they hate being inconvenienced. A: And you’re gonna go start that commune in the woods? Q: [laughs] It’s not a commune. Jake and Maren, you’ve met them- A: Mhm. Your eco podcast friends? Q: Uh, sure, yeah. A: Oh great, you can make a podcast of them and they can make a podcast of you. Q: [sigh chuckle] Yeah, maybe. They’ve got some land upstate and invited their friends to join them. A: And you’re gonna make a little farm? Q: Yeah. A: Like a commune? Q: Hmmm [laugh] yeah I guess what’s the difference between a farm with friends and a commune? A: And do you have your - wait, are you recording? Q: Yeah. A: Hello there! You gonna make a podcast out of this? Q: I wanna interview people- record conversations about what’s happening. A: Is this an interview? Q: Yeah. A: A goodbye interview? Q: Doesn’t have to be goodbye. I told you, you should come. A: My life is here. Plus someone’s gotta keep paying rent. Q: [laugh] No, you gotta stop paying rent. They’re raising it every month now. A: I know, it’s insane. That new landlord is a- Q: Yeah I heard. A: total zombie. That’s what you’re gonna interview me about? The zombies? Q: Yeah. A: Who’s this even for? Q: You never know. The future. A: Okay what do you want to know? Q: Tell me about zombies. You’re the expert. A: We’re all experts now. Well there are warning signs, you know. Q: What are the warning signs? A: [says this like it’s boringly obvious, routine to say, like everyone knows] An hour passes and it feels like a minute. You’re easily distracted and fixated on screens. You stay inside more. You’re constantly craving more and nothing can satiate you. You don't really feel connected to anything. [pause] What’s another question? Q: Have there always been zombies and we just didn’t notice? A: [laughs] Like did the Ancient Greeks have zombies? [considering] Maybe they had one or two. But no, I think it’s only been getting worse. Q: And how does it start? What causes it? A: Well I always thought it was supposed to spread by getting bit by a zombie. [makes a biting noise] It’s in your blood, then boom - you’re a zombie. Q: [laughs] Right. A: But it’s not some instant thing. You don’t start off as the vile, disgusting subhuman monster from the movies. Real zombies start off so mundane. And I mean, we’re all a little on the zombie spectrum. Q: The zombie spectrum? Oh, so it's a form of neurodiversity…? A: Ha. No, I don’t think it’s like that. It’s an illness. But some people get it worse than others. Q: How do you think it started? How did people start becoming zombies? A: No one’s exactly sure. There’s all sorts of theories. Too many theories. I think there’s many ways to become a zombie. When you’re on your phone. Or it’s in our food, it’s in our water… Q: You think it was in our water? People are drinking zombie water? A: I mean, lots of people, that's their only option. It’s the only thing that comes out of the faucet. Plus, some people thought it was kinda cool. You remember how they advertised it–that cute zombie song? Q: Haha oh yeah. –don’t sing it. A: Plus, tons of people wanted to become zombies. Q: What? You think people wanted to be eaten alive? A: No, no, not the violent way. That shit’s scary as hell. Just sort of sinking into that soft, numbed out feeling. And remember how all those influencers were selling zombie supplements? That say, you controlled the process. You were beating the zombies to the punch so they can’t hurt you. Q: Oh yeah, like that whole mindful zombie movement. A: Right, yeah. Mindful zombification. That was huge. [searches for something] Look, here’s a flyer. I took a class during J-term in college. Q: [reading flyer] “Calm Your Mind and Awaken Your Inner Undead. You deserve what you crave.” Jesus… What was it like? A: You know… Everyone stands in a circle, and the instructor does breathwork or whatever and helps you turn off your brain. Then there’s some zombie yoga. Q: Everyone loves zombie yoga. A: Yeah. [in mockingly soothing instructor voice] ‘Now everyone bring your hands forward in menacing position, good. Now stagger forward, one, two, yeah. Remember, you’re not walking—you’re staggering. . Good, now let’s repeat some zombie affirmations: I am worth it. I deserve human flesh. I devour, therefore I am. Incredible! Great job today, everybody. Next week: we’ll talk optimizing your saliva output so you can master your drool. See you then! Q: Pffft. [sigh] I had a friend who was doing the whole micro zombie thing. Taking just a little bit every day. A: A little bit of what? Pieces of flesh? Ew.. Q: He said it kept him in touch with the zombies, but not like full-on zombie all the time. A: Plenty of people were proud to be zombies. It was a flex. Q: Yeah I know, those zombie gyms. A: Not everyone though. People were terrified of zombies. Think of the last election. The guy who said he was the only one who could protect us from the zombies. He won in a landslide! Q: I know but the crazy thing was, he was a zombie! He didn’t even try to hide it. A: Of course. Our first openly zombie president. Q: But he kept telling us how terrifying zombies are. And all those idiots were like, ‘you know what? Let’s vote for that guy. He’s gonna fight the zombies like he says.’ A: Maybe that’s what we need. Maybe we need a zombie to fight the zombies. Q: Aw man, not you too. A: The zombies win either way. The other party says they’re anti zombie, but they’re totally profiting off of zombies. Q: The zombie lobby. I know, I saw that meme. A: So you watch zombie content? Q: [frustrated say] I mean, it’s everywhere. And honestly it’s pretty soothing. A: I get it. I used to play that game where you’re just mindlessly mowing down zombies. There’s no skill in it. Just killing zombies. Definitely zombied me out a little bit. Q: How ironic. A: Back when people took it seriously- Q: What those like, two months? A: [smirk] Yeah. They tried to stop companies from sharing zombie content but the CEOs were saying how zombie content is free speech. But the real reason was they make so much money from zombie content. Q: Yeah, people eat that shit up. A: The CEOs don’t give a fuck if everyone turns into a zombie. Q: They already are. A: I told you, the zombies always win. Q: So you think we’re doomed? A: Oh, we’re definitely doomed. Q: Now you sound like one. The worst kind of zombie is that kind that keeps saying we’re doomed. A: Well text me when you’re at the commune, if there’s texting there. Q: Okay I will. But come join us when you run out of dumpster bagels. A: I’ll turn into a zombie and come find you- [zombie noises and biting sounds] Q: [laughing] Don’t say that. Jesus. A: Good luck dude. Q: Good luck. [MUSICAL INTERLUDE, WALKING, SOUNDS OF CITY TRAFFIC, ZOMBIES CHANTING IN PARK, OCCASIONAL SCREAMS, HELICOPTERS, CITY SOUNDS GETTING QUIETER, MORE DESOLATE] SECOND INTERVIEW A2: Woah, woah, back up. Back up! Q: I was just gonna see if you needed help. A2: What? Oh.. uh, sure. Yeah, actually thanks. The wheel on my cart is loose. It keeps tipping over. [they lift the cart back up and put stuff in it] A2: Are you recording this? Q: Yeah if you don’t mind. I’ve been trying to make sense of this…chaos. A2: [sigh scoff = Pffff] Yeah you me and both. Well I’ve got it all figured out. I’ll tell you anything you want to know. Q: Okay good. A2: You’ve seen those studies that the poorer you are the less likely you are to become a zombie? Q: Hmm. A2: It spread through the rich people first. All those mansions on the hill up there. Super dangerous. Who woulda thought I’d feel safer walking past the tents and homeless shelters? Everything going to shit is nothing to homeless people. Q: I guess they were kinda already living it. A2: What’s crazy is I read how the stock market is doing better than ever. Guess that makes sense. People are consuming more than ever before. Q: What do you do for work? Or, what did you do? A2: I was in retail. I’d work with zombies every day. Someone would come in and be like, ‘oh, I'm getting a new couch.’ And then they’d come back in an hour later and go, ‘Now I need a new chair, I need new paint, I need new pillows. I need a new rug.’ It’s a domino effect. You get something new and you're like’ oh all my other stuff looks terrible now.’ So I have to get more, more, more. First it’s chairs and couches, then it’s human flesh. They love human flesh. Sure, a zombie will devour a chicken but nothing seems to get them like human flesh. Q: Yeah so why is it they're so obsessed with human flesh? A2: Our whole culture’s like that. We just want to, like, tear each other apart. Q: Hmm. A2 Think of how we were to each other on the internet. Always yelling at each other, always canceling and banishing and being toxic and racist and just trying to, you know, like, hurt people. Q: You’d think since we hate each other so much we’d just stop talking to each other… A2: But we want to talk with each other. That's the conflict our culture has. We don't want to have anything to do with each other, but we also need each other. We flock to each other, but fight all the time. We’re like a swarm of locusts. You know locusts are really grasshoppers right? Q: What do you mean? A2: Locusts are just grasshoppers… but once there’s too many of them, and they’re all crowded together, they transform into locusts and just destroy everything. They can’t help it. That’s what zombies are. They’re the locust to our grasshopper. [pause] People are craving human connection. And that's what the zombies want. They want human connection too, but they can't have it. They don't know how to have it. So they just devour us. Q: Damn. A2: That's what’s sad about zombies. They just want and want but never really have anything, you know?. The second they get it they take a bite and move on. None of it's ever enough. Q: Yeah. A2: I didn’t take it too seriously at first. All those reports of a serious virus. Come on. [dismissive] We made it through covid alright, this didn’t look too serious to me. I even thought those people were funny the way they’d start twitching and stumbling around. [gets serious] But that stopped being funny when their eyes glazed over and they tried to take a bite out of you. There was no talking to them anymore. They were… gone. It’s like they don’t hear anything. They don’t feel anything. They can only grunt and growl. It’s scary. Q: Did it - did it happen to anyone you knew? A2: Yeah. The worst is when you see someone good turned bad. Well not bad, exactly. Zombies aren’t evil, they’re just mindless. The worst is when you see those stories where they devour their own family. It’s horrifying, but you gotta still pity them. They’re victims of a disease. And you realize it could happen to anybody. It could happen to you. You could be the monster. You wonder, what would you do? You like to think you could somehow over power it, that you’d never hurt your loved ones, but you know if it really came down to it you’d act the same. [pause] You know anyone? Q: My uncle has Stage IV Zombie. A2: God, I’m sorry. That’s awful. Q: It’s okay. Last I heard he bit a dude’s face in the subway. A2: Oh man. [pause] My sister has stage two. Q: They say it might be reversible. Some countries are still working on a cure. A2: Everything is fucked. You know what this is? This is the apocalypse. Q Yeah. [kinda laughs but also like “damn”] A2: No really. This shit is biblical. We’ve even got the locusts… I thought the apocalypse would be some big sudden event, you know? But it happened on these different levels. And we’d get used to each level. It’s crazy what we’ve come to think is normal. I guess some people were warning us when everything started falling apart, but most people didn’t want to accept it. Or just couldn't accept it. We all have in our minds what the end of the world looks like, so when the reality is much subtler we don’t believe that’s what it is. But I mean, now, c’mon, it’s pretty damn obvious. Unless, you know, [quieter] you’re a zombie… Q: I don’t know… at first I thought like everything was gonna change. There would be a before and then an after. But so many people just wanted things to go back to normal. A: Yeah. Q: But it’s like, there's no normal after this. You’d think this woulda been a wake up call. Like this was what we needed to change our ways. A: To get us out of locust mode. Q: Right. This is when we get it. This is the perfect opportunity for people to get it. A: Yeah I’m not sure man. I’m not sure people are ever going to get it. Everything’s still going. Or at least enough people are acting like it is. Yeah, I’m with ya. I thought during a zombie apocalypse everything would collapse. The city would just stop. But the city’s still doing its thing. It's like the city is a zombie itself. Q: So why aren’t you getting out? A2: ‘Cause this is where all the stuff is. Where are you going? Q: I’m meeting my friends upstate at their cabin. A2: What’s up in the cabin? Q: Well they’ve got a garden going. It’s in the woods so there’s stuff to forage. A2: Shit. Sounds terrifying. Q: More terrifying than a zombie city? A2: Yeah even with the zombies, at least the city’s got A/C. Q: Fair enough. ZOMBIE CONFRONTATION [sound of walking, crunching leaves, sound of rummaging in distance, getting louder Q approaches, we hear sounds of snarling] Zombie: [muttering to self] Rise and dine, chat—your boy’s brain-gains are going crazy today. I’m human-flesh-maxing today—don’t forget to smash that follow before I smash some skulls! Let’s gooooo. Q: Oh no.. A Stage III… [whispering to self] Okay… [breathing heavily and walking away slowly] [snarling and rummaging stops suddenly. Q takes a sudden breath and holds it. We hear a muttering growl.] Zombie: Like and subscribe! Q: No, no! It’s okay! It’s okay! [Zombie barking angrily] Q: Here. [zombie temporarily calms, sounds curious] Yeah, that’s right. It’s an ipad. [zombie really curious, but also distrusting] Here, you can have it. You want it? Good zombie. [Then all of a sudden the sound of a gunshot, snarling stops and there’s a thud] Q: What the f— [out of surprise] Rex: Whoooo-wee! Headshot. Third one today. I’m on one helluva roll. Q: Fuck. Rex: You okay kid? You’re lucky ol’ Rex was here to save ya. [zombie groaning in deep pain] Q: Oh my god. They’re still alive… Rex: What’s that? Oh, yep, hold on. [gunshot sound] There we go. Nothing a lil’ pump-action shotgun can’t fix. You see the recoil on this thing? I know most guys go for a Remington 870 but the Winchester is a classic. Can’t beat it. I got half a dozen just like ‘em back at the bunker. Put her there. You can call me Rex. Q: Um, hey. Rex: You shoulda seen the kill I got the other day. Guts splattered everywhere. It was like graffiti in a gas station bathroom. Got my kill count up to 15 this week. I’m leading the Big D scoreboard. Q: Big D? Rex: Yeah that’s our name. Bunker’s not too far from here. We got that shit stocked with enough creatine to last us till every last one of these fuckers is dead. [pause] What do you say, my dude? Wanna join the squad? Or, you more of a lone wolf zombie killer? Q: Uh, thanks, no, I’m-. Rex: Where’s your gun? You lost it? Q: I don’t have one. Rex: [tsking] You got a death wish? Q: I usually outrun them. Rex: And just leave ‘em for the next guy to find? These streets aren’t gonna clean themselves. Q: I’m just trying to get out of the city. Rex: Where? To the woods? Pshhhhhhhht. Bet you don’t survive a fucking day out there. Where you headed? Uhh, nowhere really. [lying to him] Rex: That a microphone? Oh, yeah I was- Rex: Let me see that thing. Hello world! Welcome to the real life zombieland, where only the strong survive. You wanna make it out here? This ain’t swattin’ flies, okay? You gotta kill like you’re Vincent Goddamn Van Gogh. Every bullet is my brush. The splatter of zombie brains is paint on my canvas. I see the hunger in their eyes. But ol’ Rex here is not on the menu. I’m the goddamn chef. I don’t just kill zombies - I savor their death. Every snap of bone, every scream from their rotting throats - I eat it up. The cowards tremble in their little holes, just praying for the nightmare to pass. But me? I am the zombie’s nightmare. I’m the butcher of barbarians. Their blood is my war paint. Their numbers mean nothing to me. Ten, a hundred, a thousand. I won’t rest until they’re wiped from the face of the earth. I’ll stack their rotting corpses high enough to blot out the sun. The zombies didn’t kill me–they crowned me. I’m the king of the goddamn jungle. This world doesn’t belong to the dead. It belongs to me. Okay, thanks man, I’m gonna- Rex: You want any more? I can keep going… No, no, we’re good. ‘Preciate it! CABIN IN THE WOODS MAREN: [from far off] Hello there! Q: [while walking] Hey! MAREN and JAKE: Hi! Q: [getting close to them] Wooo… am I glad to see you guys. JAKE: Us too! [while hugging] MAREN: Come on in. JAKE: Yeah let me take your bag. MAREN: Just in time for the sunset. Q: Yeah, it’s beautiful. MAREN: How long did it take you? Q: A few days. I avoided main roads. JAKE: Zombie traffic is a nightmare. MAREN: We were just getting a fire going. Q: Great. JAKE: My family used to come here when we were kids. Q: It’s so nice. [sipping soup] JAKE: There were a few other families that went in on it. We’d each stay for a week in the summer. Q: You think the other families are gonna make it out here too? MAREN: If we’re gonna turn that little garden into an actual farm we’ll need help. JAKE: But I don’t think the others are doing so well. Q: Damn, I’m sorry. MAREN: You meet anyone interesting on your way out here? Q: Pfft. Well I ran into one of those shotgun guys… MAREN and JAKE: Oh yeah. JAKE: They’re everywhere. MAREN: They were waiting for this. Killing zombies is all they’ve ever wanted to do. Q: Yeah… and I met this other guy who was calling this the apocalypse. [MAREN and JAKE kind of laugh] JAKE: I mean… he’s not wrong. Q: A zombie apocalypse. MAREN: Well hey, the zombies didn’t cause the apocalypse. They didn’t clearcut the Amazon Rainforest. JAKE: Yeah the movies always made it seem like shit only hits the fan once zombies are around. As if everything was fine before the zombies came. MAREN: Yeah the zombies are just the cherry on top of the apocalypse sundae. Q: So this is the apocalypse? JAKE: You know the original Greek definition of apocalypse is “unveiling.” It makes me think that at the end of all of our destruction, there's going to be this great unveiling of reality and truth. Apocalypses expose undeniable truths. Just look at the world! The floods, the fires, the drought, the famine - the sixth mass extinction! It’s all around us. MAREN: And this wasn’t divine damnation. This isn’t God’s reckoning. This was us. We did this. But lots of people can't accept the truth of what we’ve done to the world and the consequences of it. All those people having a hard time accepting the reality of the apocalypse, tuning out and numbing, that’s what really creates the zombies. Q: You think becoming a zombie is a denial response? MAREN: Yeah absolutely, a denial response that you lose control over. MAREN: Think about it—now people are willingly becoming zombies, taking those zombie supplements. So now they don’t have to worry about the end of the world, let alone take responsibility for it. Just - boop - turn off your brain. Q: Hmm, interesting. JAKE: Our friend’s kids. They’re 3 and 5. All they want to do is numb out. Q: Mhm. MAREN: But it’s not their fault. People always criticize how young people are responding to the world without focusing on the conditions of the world itself. JAKE: Right, totally. People don’t want to acknowledge there's something wrong with the civilization that’s producing these zombified people. So they attack the scapegoat: the zombies. Q: Zombie shaming. JAKE: [laughs] Zombie shaming… Q: Oh, also, did you guys know that locusts are just overpopulated grasshoppers? I always thought they were like a different species. JAKE: Yes, I heard that!. Grasshoppers literally become locusts. It's an evolutionary mechanism—I think it’s called “phase polyphenism.” Regular grasshoppers, if they reach a certain high density population threshold, they start to fight, eat each other, and then they swarm and eat everything. Q: Woah. JAKE: It's a response to monoculture. It’s what happens when there’s fields and fields of wheat and nothing else. Just one kind of crop. That's why you have plague stories all throughout the Bible. You don't get plagues like that before monoculture. MAREN: Yeah we created the conditions for this thing to emerge. Q: Hmmm. MAREN: I think 28 Days Later got it right. Q: That’s gotta be the best zombie movie. MAREN: Yeah and in 28 Days Later how did this all start? They were fucking with nature. Chimp testing. This hubris that we have to assume that we can control and tinker with nature, that’s what brings about the zombie apocalypse. JAKE: And in the classic zombie narrative there’s always some technological fix. There’s more fiddling with nature to solve the problem the previous fiddling caused. And I’m all for finding cures but the story always ends there. There’s no deeper reflection on what caused the problem in the first place. Just new problems created to solve old ones we also created…You ever see the Walking Dead? Q: No, I did not. I’m too squeamish. JAKE: Well the Walking Dead took this typical trajectory where it was like, well, how can we fix this problem? And the arc of the first two seasons was that - MAREN: Spoiler alert. JAKE: He said he’s not gonna watch it. Q: Yeah no you’re good. But thanks for looking out. JAKE: Okay so there was this facility in Atlanta that had the cure, but it got overrun. So they had to get to that facility. And long story short, the moment they get there, the whole thing just blows up. And so the cure becomes impossible. And after that the show just gets stupid. Because then it was like, well, now there's no cure. So now we just all need to be zombie killer badasses for eight seasons. And it's very violent and emphasizes the worst parts of humanity. Q: Yeah it’s like the movies always tell us the way to survive a zombie apocalypse is to just kill all the zombies. You know, grab your shotgun, the baseball bat with nails in it, [chuckles] whatever makeshift weapon you can find, and go around and just kill zombies until there aren’t any left. MAREN: Yeah. Exterminate them. Get in your bunker, fortify your wall, don’t trust anyone. Q: Right, the stories tell us, okay, the world's dangerous now, it's a hostile environment, full of these mindless monsters. And you’ve got to go out and kill them all to make the world safe again. JAKE: But, you know, that’s nothing new. That’s exactly how the settlers treated the new world, like it was a zombie apocalypse. ‘Oh, my God, there's native people! Oh, oh, there are grizzly bears! Kill them! Oh, there's a river - dam that! Oh, there’s a mountain - blast that! Q: Mmmm. JAKE: And the way those shotgun guys view zombies, as mindless and deserving of slaughter is just like how they viewed the world long before the apocalypse: as mindless and deserving of slaughter. Long before the apocalypse, they boarded themselves up behind walls, stockpiled weapons, and from behind their ever expanding fortress they fired chemicals and pesticides and smothered all the dangers they perceived in concrete. Q: Woah, yeah. JAKE: And in our stories we’re supposed to celebrate the people who spend their apocalypse locking themselves behind walls, stocking up on guns, viewing the world as a battlefield. We think zombies are the only ones who’ve lost their humanity but these people have also lost their humanity. Their lives are reduced to a genocidal video game, just senselessly killing. MAREN: It’s a sickness, just like zombification, right? It’s like they’ve become another kind of monster. Q: Maybe we should give it a name. JAKE: Some cultures do have a name for that kind of monster. Have you read Black Elk Speaks? He talks about how the Lakota called the white settlers they encountered Wasichus. Here I have the book. [getting book] JAKE: So yeah, at one point Black Elk goes to New York City and says “They would take everything from each other if they could, and so there were some who had more of everything than they could use, while crowds of people had nothing at all and maybe were starving.” Q: Okay, should we call them Wasichus then? The shotgun guys? MAREN: [laughs] Well we can but the problem isn’t individual monsters. It’s a whole culture. Q: Wasichu culture? JAKE: Yeah exactly. The culture we’ve grown up in. And this culture always treated the world like it was a zombie apocalypse. Wiping out the predators. Shooting the wolves. Killing the snakes. Q: Stomping on the bugs. JAKE: Yeah. JAKE: And you’ve always got to be vigilant. You’ve got to pull out all the weeds, make fences around your crops, kill the pests who try to take what’s yours. It’s like a constant state of paranoia. Q: Zombies are mindless. Wasichus are paranoid. MAREN: Yeah and that paranoia- that the wilderness is hostile and something to be exterminated or controlled - that isn’t a response to the apocalypse - that is what created the apocalypse in the first place. Because the world can’t be controlled, not really. Try and dam a river / and it’ll just make floods or erosion worse. So we created the apocalypse because we wanted so badly to control the uncontrollable. Q: Right. We are kind of raised in this culture that tells us, like, you should be so grateful you're born in this time after we killed all those monsters, the lions and grizzly bears and wolves that once roamed the places we live. And the zombie apocalypse is our worst fear because it's like, oh, shit: the wilderness is back. We wanted so badly to control everything but we can’t. That’s what is so scary about zombies, because now it’s people out of control. JAKE: Yeah it’s like climate change. We tried to control nature, thinking we were so clever for using all this oil and coal. But ironically it made nature even more out of control, less predictable, more chaotic than ever before. MAREN: And then there’s the scientists focused on fighting climate change through more technological fixes. Q: Classic wasichu response. MAREN: We’re not really changing our behavior. JAKE: No, we’re just trying to find another cheat code so we can keep consuming. [interlude, fire cracking, music] MAREN: That’s why we fear death so much. It's the ultimate thing that we can't control. That’s what Wasichus fear more than anything. They think life is under attack from death. And it’s true, death is everywhere. In the jaws of a lion, in a river that floods, in the aging we try to forestall. We’ve tried our best to defeat death, by killing all the predators and damming the rivers and all that. But the irony is that by fighting a war with death we’ve brought even greater destruction. The fear of death brought the destruction of life. Apocalypse. JAKE: And of course death isn’t actually an attack on life. It’s part of life. The lion’s not a monster, she’s hungry. And she’s only going to kill to satisfy her hunger. Zombies’ hunger is bottomless. They can’t be satisfied. Q: So if going around killing all the zombies also makes you a monster, what are we supposed to do? MAREN: Is killing them our only option? There’s nothing else we can do? What about healing them? Q: Like finding a cure? A zombie vaccine? JAKE: Yeah, maybe. But I’ve heard zombification isn’t like a virus - it’s more of a mental state. Q: Then how do you possibly bring someone back when they’ve gone full zombie? MAREN: Well the zombies are worse in the cities, or at least that’s where they're at their most aggressive. Or anywhere that’s super developed. But when they leave the city, I’ve seen them start to slow down. It’s like they lose steam. On our way out here we saw a few zombies stumbling through the forest. They must have been out here for a few days at least. They were looking a little different. They looked a little despondent, not as desperate. JAKE: Yeah they saw us and growled but didn’t rush at us. MAREN: Maybe it's in that mode that there's at least an opening for zombie healing. I don’t know. Q: Has anyone actually seen a zombie become a normal person again? Gone from Stage V to Stage IV or III? Do we even know if that’s possible? Like what ended up happening to those zombies? JAKE: We didn’t stick around too long. Not worth the risk. MAREN: I’m not saying just being in nature is going to be enough. But at least they aren’t freaking out as much there. They’d probably need full on zombie rehab or something. Q: You’re saying we should build a zombie rehab center here? MAREN: Haha maybe I am. The point is, we can’t respond to zombies the way we’ve been responding to the world. Ultimately all we can really control is making sure we don’t become zombies or shotgun enthusiasts ourselves. And if apocalypse denial makes you a zombie, then we have to accept the apocalypse. We can’t live like it’s still something in the distance. MAREN: You know how in the movies, there’s a disaster so swift and so fierce that it changes everything. The survivors emerge from the rubble. There’s grieving but there’s also freedom. There’s no going back. We have to live here now, in this new world. Q: Like a post-apocalyptic movie? MAREN: Yeah exactly. JAKE: I’m just thinking about that term: “post apocalypse.” It makes it seem like the apocalypse is something that happens and then it’s over. But that’s not how it works. It’s not like the apocalypse goes away. As if the apocalypse was rock bottom and things can only get better from there. Q: Yeah there is a comfort to rock bottom. At least then you have some ground to stand. When things can’t get any worse. JAKE: But things can always get worse. We’ll always be able to convince ourselves we haven’t hit rock bottom yet. I think we have to choose what our rock bottom is. We have to live as if this is rock bottom, like the post-apocalypse. Q: Right, if you don't accept that we’re living in an apocalypse, that it’s really here, then you didn't hit rock bottom yet. MAREN: I think the three of us are lucky to have gone through that early, spending those youthful years overwhelmed by how fucked everything is, just hoping other people are feeling the same way. It’s painful and isolating but I think it was a sort of inoculation to apocalypse denial. Q: Yeah I think a lot of people never really go through that. They’re still denying this is all set up to collapse. Like hey, no, don’t worry, we’ll figure all this out. We’re still gonna colonize Mars! Remember Mars? But it’s like, guys, it’s over. We gotta try something else. JAKE: In all the post-apocalypse movies, once the initial terror of the moment passes, there's usually a scene where all the characters are enjoying the newfound freedom that comes with we don't have to do bullshit anymore. We get to live our lives. People find out what is actually precious to them, what actually matters to them, what is actually important. And usually it's their relationships with each other. That's the only thing that they have that they care about anymore. All of the things that are actually important, healthy food, healthy relationships, connection to land and nature. MAREN: But we still have to deal with the consequences of what happened. That’s part of the post-apocalypse too. Things aren’t the same. Q: So how can we live as if the apocalypse already happened? Like, this is the day after, what would you do? How do you accept the consequences? JAKE: Well maybe one of the consequences is that there’s just going to be zombies now. Maybe some zombies won’t be able to be healed. Q: That’s not the normal happy ending: ‘and there were no more zombies ever again.’ JAKE: Yeah but people are always going to run the risk of becoming zombies when things are hard to face. You could try and go around killing them all. Or you could just live with the fact that there are some zombies around. MAREN: And yeah like, you should definitely protect yourself. Go to a safe place. Don’t put yourself in harm's way. Maybe try and heal zombies when they’re more open to it. Q: At our new zombie rehab center. MAREN: Haha, yeah, at our new zombie rehab center. [sound of fireplace crackling, time passing, nighttime, owl hoot, rustling of leaves, there’s erratic but slow knocking or bumping on the door] Q: You hear that? [they’re quiet while the bumping continues] Q: [whispering] You think it’s…? JAKE: Yeah sounds like it. [the muffled sounds of a coupe zombies groaning] JAKE: Is the door locked? MAREN: Yeah I bolted it. [the zombie groans are frustrated, die down a bit] [all three nervous laugh, then continue talking in hushed voices and low tones] Q: Wow. JAKE: Yeah, speak of the devil. MAREN: They’re not devils, right? That’s the whole point. JAKE: [laughs] Yeah. Q: I was camping in Utah once and there was this big field with a few cows in it, including a calf. And this coyote was just walking right through the field. The cows weren’t running away, they weren’t trying to stamp out the coyote. I mean, they were wary of it, they were certainly alert. They were looking at it like, okay, okay. And the coyote’s like, hey guys, hey guys, just passing through. MAREN: Yeah you see those NatGeo documentaries where the buffalo are crossing the river and getting eaten by crocodiles. But what they don't show you is that once the buffalo have seen that the crocodiles have eaten, that they're not a threat, the buffalo and zebras will go drink water right next to a crocodile, because the whole herd just watched you eat one, you're not going to eat me now. It's this like recognition of boundaries that nature has with itself. JAKE: But that's the scary thing about zombies - they don't have boundaries. They're not living within an ecosystem. Zombies kill, take a bite, then waste the rest, and move on to another. MAREN: I don’t think zombies are that much more dangerous than a grizzly bear. JAKE: But grizzlies aren't always trying to get you… MAREN: Yeah but you can get away from a zombie. They’re not the sharpest tools in the shed. They can’t really organize. And they’re not reproducing. Q: Okay so we’ll try and live with zombies. But what about the shotgun guys? I feel like they’re way more dangerous than zombies or grizzly bears. They’re just gonna keep fighting the world and making the apocalypse worse. MAREN: Well in Braiding Sweetgrass, Robin Wall Kimmerer talks about how the Potawatomi tell this story about another kind of monster, the Windigo. At the end - JAKE: Spoiler alert. MAREN: It’s not that kind of book. JAKE: I know, I know. MAREN: Well at the end, the way she defeats the Windigo is by holding him and giving him tea and feeding him. Q: You guys got enough tea? MAREN: I think the point is like, can we acknowledge that this creature is destructive and also try to understand it and try to hold it and heal it? Q: So, sounds like we need a shotgun monster wing of the zombie rehab center? MAREN: Someone can't change unless they want to be. We might have to let go of trying to heal them. It's tempting to want to go out and make the world better and heal, but isn’t that a similar mentality to what created the problem too? We’ve gotta just live a different way ourselves. First we’ve got to accept this is the apocalypse. JAKE: And instead of stockpiling a bunch of guns and building walls - which is the kinda thinking that created the apocalypse in the first place - we’ll just gather as many friends as we can together and work on our garden. Q: Sounds good to me. [zombies muffled groans outside] JAKE: [yawns] We can get started tomorrow. It’s been a long day. Let’s get some rest. MAREN: Goodnight Alex. Q: Goodnight. JAKE: Goodnight man.
