The one single need

I am leaning my back against the trunk of a huge spreading tree on a small hillock covered with lush green grass. In my hands, I am holding a book with stories by my favorite writer. Below are slow-moving crowds of zombies. They do not need to hurry anywhere, nor do I. It's an idyll of a summer day. I would give anything right now for the opportunity to read a book. But, unfortunately, letters are like hieroglyphs for me. I know who this writer is; I have read this book before. I saw it in a bookstore and took it with me. I enjoy turning the pages and imaging that I am reading. Before I was bitten, I read a lot.

I put the book down on the grass and looked at the zombies. I always keep to myself. The others repeatedly tried to invite me to walk with them, but I, baring my teeth and growling gutturally, made it clear to them that it was better not to touch me. In general, they have a strong sense of crowd. They always try to huddle together and wander around the area, growling and groaning. They may need to understand each other. They create the appearance of communication.

I find my solitude much more pleasant than these ugly, decay-touched mugs. And I am no better. I try not to go near mirrors and other reflective surfaces so as not to accidentally see pale, bluish skin and blue, almost inky lips that, when parted, reveal yellow teeth. Along with protruding collarbones, my neck is crossed by three crimson stripes - a mark I received on the day of infection.

After the bite, I do not know how much time passed before I opened my eyes. Strangely enough, my thoughts remained clear, and I even thought that I had not been infected and was still human. But one glance at my blue hands with blackened nails cleared up all my doubts. My body didn't want to obey me, and I realized why zombies walked so strangely. I struggled to my feet and took a couple of steps. Oh! That creepy shuffling sound, by which you can usually hear them approaching. I made my way to the mirror. Oh! What a disgusting sight! I need to work on my posture a little, not smile, not shuffle, and I can pass for a handsome creature from the cover of a famous magazine if their zombie community even has a concept of beauty.

After contemplating, I decided not to leave the apartment but to calmly wait for the survivors to come to me and kill me. But soon, I felt a terrible feeling of hunger. So I had to go in search of food. In the hallway, opening the shoe closet, I saw all my Oxford shoes. Why haven't I bought sneakers? I decided to go barefoot, and that's how I walk now. On the one hand, this is a benefit  since I walk silently; on the other hand, it is a deficiency since I was exhausted from pulling glass, nails, and other trash out of my feet.

I felt intense hunger, so I wandered around, flaring my nostrils and trying to catch the fragrant smell of human flesh, and then eating fresh meat in the company of my zombie comrades. It's not an aesthetic way to eat, but there's nothing to be done; it's filling and delicious. And there's no remorse: people are just food. I don't recollect anyone crying tears over roast beef in a restaurant.

Over time, I learned to see the benefits of this form of existence. I don't need to care for myself, wash, shave, cut my nails, or visit a barber or masseur. I am who I am and certainly won't get any better. There is no eternal dilemma of choice when you stand in front of an overflowing closet. You always have one thing on, the one you wore when you got bitten, and you don't need another.

All this year, I have been peering into decayed faces, trying to find one with some remnants of an intellect. If I have it, then there must be others. I feel like a researcher, who is being locked in a rotting body. However, we owe our existence to scientists. Humanity tried hard to achieve immortality, and in a sense, it succeeded. We are now a genuinely exceptional nation; our president could have been proud of us if we hadn't eaten him.

Perhaps our emergence manifests the will of "higher powers". Humanity, having grown like a cancerous tumor and poisoning everything it touched, was supposed to disappear. Maybe zombies were assigned the role of orderlies who, having destroyed people, were supposed to die from lack of food. But something went wrong. Darwin's laws work on zombies, too. We realized that the destruction of people would threaten us with inevitable death, and since we could not eat anything else but human flesh, the only way out was to breed humans. What's wrong with that? People also bred animals and took care of them just to eat later.

I prefer to avoid walking near the farms where we keep people. It's ironic; they built ranches for cattle with their own hands, where they now find themselves. During the warm season, people are kept in the fresh air, and in the winter, we move them to the stalls. Men are destined for producing food. Only the best specimens with a high reproductivity rate are left alive. Women are being used for offspring. After the ability to bear children ceases, they are being used for food. The drawback in breeding them is that women only give birth to one offspring, and the growth is very slow.

Since the place of the humans in the food chain has changed, the world has become a better place. The air has become fresh; formerly polluted cities have drowned in the greenery of overgrown plants and are filled with birds singing, with water reservoirs turning pristine. We are better than people; we are more environmentally friendly. We do not possess their insatiable needs. We don't get sick, can't experience cold, and thus lack the need for clothes and housing. We don't promote consumerism and overproduction. We don't build factories that pollute the air, we don't cut down forests, pollute reservoirs, ruin the earth to extract minerals, invent weapons of mass destruction, or pollute space. We have only one single drawback - hunger.

We are mute now, but who knows what happens next? I am still twirling the book in my hands, which I hope to be able to read again someday. After all, too much time on your hands is a significant disadvantage: it makes you overthink, a quality that carries no benefit for a zombie.