Body, Mind, Spirit.

The living listen to the dead about as well as the dead listen to the living. Sometimes, as in my case, the communication channels become even more challenging. When the living seek to communicate with the dead, they only hear what echoes remain in their minds. When the dead try to communicate with the living, their whispers are like the wind, flowing unnoticed. 

I, on the other hand, remain between these states. My body may lie beneath the ground in a state adjacent to death, and my untethered spirit howls for mercy in the darkness. My mind, on the other hand, remains conscious in the otherworld. I am a trinity of me. Split apart into its component parts. Mind, active and aware. Spirit, or ghost if you will, mindlessly haunting the place of its passing from flesh to ethereal. And the body, now empty of mind and spirit, was cast aside in the shallow grave discarded. 

There wasn't exactly a murder that led to my current predicament. Instead, I had my life stripped from my body ceremonially. My body may still walk the earth again if reawakened. 

The dilemma of spirituality is that the spirit always longs to escape from the body and silence the mind. 

Adjacent to death is the realm of the undead. Flesh that is capable of reanimation. Mind that continues to think and feel emotionally. Spirit free to roam the realms of immortality, yet unwilling to leave the vicinity of mortal demise. 

The body lies brain-dead and soulless. The spirit is immaterial, formless, and mindless. The mind is heartless and soulless yet conscious of its existence. A broke apart being incapable of communicating with itself. 

I think, therefore, I am. The mind may not have matter once the body's brain death is complete, but the ego is esoterically eternal. Due to the power of the ego and the will, the thoughts are hard to suppress even in life. Now, in this state, they dominate. 

I am, therefore, can do. If I can conceive of an ability, assuredly, I can accomplish it. The most extraordinary power of the mind is to decide.

I have decided to rise. Rise from the grave. The mind found peace at the moment of decision, while the spirit became unrestful. The body, beneath the shallow soil, stirred. 

'Arise zombie me,' my consciousness commanded as the ghostly me shrieked and howled in anguished protest. My body complied, thrashing blindly with eyes and mouth full of earth and earthworms alike. As fingers broke the barrier between the burial ground and the festering forest floor, the mind was pleased as the spirit felt unease.

Disappointed set in. The ego had betrayed the mind. Given the nature of my demise, I had convinced myself that returning to life was just a matter of deciding to live again. On the night of the dark moon, I had been hiking through the forest when I saw a bonfire in a meadow—in the flickering light danced a pack of wild animals grunting and growling. 

With the hair on my neck standing alert, I turned to back away slowly when a twig snapped, the dry leaves of autumn crunched, and six sets of eyes swung my way. A bear, a wolf, a deer, a cougar, and other shapes hidden in the shadow rose slowly onto their hind legs and stared. The wolf howled as they turned to give chase. Before I could step toward safety, a shovel wielded by a man with elk antlers bashed my head in.

That was when the separation began. The ceremony that ripped out the soul and freed the mind as they prepared the body, my body, for a suspended animation. My brain was exposed by a fractured skull, allowing for marination in a brew of toxic herbs. My heart slowed, then stopped. For a lingering moment, as the brain died, thoughts were truly silent for an agonizing instant. My soul was first to go. I experienced it. My spirit was happy to be free. My mind clung on till the very end. Acceptance of death is not an easy thing. 

When the animal men had covered my body in soil and defiled it with dung, my mind realized that my life was over. I had moved on. 'The great beyond,' as they called it, wasn't far away. I remained tethered to myself. 

My body has risen, and my ego has convinced my mind we would reunify and life would go on as usual. That is where the disappointment set in. My body could move of its own volition, driven by a hunger for the ability to think. My soul was left a tortured witness to the horrors of a mindless hunger. My mind was left to understand its inability to control the body. 

Dopamine. When among the living and possessing the ability to enjoy a good horror movie, zombies were shown as driven by a hunger for brains. The truth is, it wasn't a hunger exactly, but a thirst for the brain chemistry of the living. I possessed no desire or drive to kill or harm, only a desire to think, feel, and be whole again. Without dopamine and other brain chemicals, my dead gray matter could never allow the habitation of the mind. 

My soul lamented as with every brain, I sucked the life from, my mind came closer to regaining consciousness within the body, but my spirit repulsed farther away from life. 

Contemplation of one's existence and condition, I thought, was what defined life. Now, I face a horrible realization. To live, think, and not just be mindlessly driven, I must accept an existence without a heartbeat, without a soul, and with the conscious awareness of a need to feed on the thoughts and feelings of others to retain my own. 

I have decided. My ego has agreed. My life matters more than the suffering of others. So, I feed out of greed. My soul shrieks in horror and disgust, trying to warn the living. My guilt lives outside of me, separated. Communication with the dead and undead remains a tricky problem I still grapple with. I am what I am. Soulless existence is the existence I have chosen.

Hallowed eve, I feed, knowing my nature. I am a ghoul, I am a ghost, I am a zombie, I am dead, undead, and living in one. I am at once without fear and the sum of all I feared. 

I am death cometh. I thirst for your thoughts and fears.