I accidentally left the television on last night and yanked out the headphone cord when I was sleeping, so I woke up to the sounds of "The Price is Right" and had myself a mini-heart attack before finding the awareness to shut off the TV. For a few minutes I just sat there listening for zombies outside my door, but there were no sounds. No new sounds, I mean. There was still the moaning. The occasional roar of a plane. I hear helicopters flying overhead but I'm too scared to try and flag them down. There's no easy way to make myself visible without advertising myself to all the zombies in the street. I'm fine waiting as long as possible with the supplies I have. I'd rather know I survived as long as I could before risking my life. I'm not heroic. But anyway after a few minutes of waiting (and no I didn't put my head up against the door like an idiot or stand too close to the window), I convinced myself it was all clear and went about my morning.
It's almost noon -- still pretty early. I've already run out of things to keep me busy. I had a piece of bread for breakfast and a glass of tap water. I'm thinking about digging through my closet for the bong and lighting up -- even though two weeks ago I quit cold-turkey when I applied for that job at the River Rock Casino. I stopped smoking when I heard they did drug testing and, since that job pays so much better, I thought it would be worth it. But that's sort of a pointless idea if zombies are spreading across the country. Some reports on the news today have been talking about virus outbreaks in San Francisco, Sacramento, and even as far south as Santa Cruz and as far north as Portland. I'm guessing that the whole west coast will be gone before the weekend. Every day brings more and more bad news.
I talked to Belen today. She called me back. She's healthy and safe with her parents in Fountain Grove -- this neighborhood about ten minutes away -- and we talked for almost an hour before her parents needed her to help with some chore, block up some window. Who knows how long cellphones will work... It was good to hear that she's okay. I called her -- and everyone I knew -- over the past few days and only a couple have replied. People not from Santa Rosa, mostly. Other than Belen, I haven't heard from anyone from work. I keep my phone charged, just in case, making use of the elecricity that might not last for much longer.
What bothers me the most right now is that I might be safe enough to leave my apartment and at least walk around the complex. There's that ten-foot-tall fence that surrounds the whole place and, if someone was smart enough to lock the front gate, that should be protection from the outside streets. The zombies can see through the fence, however, and depending on how many there are -- they might be numbered enough to rush the fence and force their way over the top. So then I stay in my apartment because I don't want to be the one who agitates them into a full-force attack. Thus, it feels like I'm my own prisoner, you know? Other than the moaning and the occasional gunshot, there's not much going on that makes me think I'm in the middle of a zombie invasion. And because of that, I'm still remarkably calm.
A little marijuana might help, too. But I'm still putting that off. I've got to keep my mind active and ready... Though seven days of lethargy makes me feel usueless, anyway. I just meander around the apartment, upstairs and downstairs. I play videogames for five minutes at a time. I watch the news for hope of good news. I draw. I write in this blog. I send e-mails out to all my friends and family members. My mom keeps saying she's trying to find people to take her into Santa Rosa so she can rescue me. I got another e-mail from my dad today that suggested I find the nearest sporting goods store (to get a shotgun, he suggested) and I Google-mapped the nearest one to be about fifteen minutes down Mendocino. Everyone else I've been talking to has been telling me to stay inside, stay quiet, and wait for it to pass.
I don't think people realize how big of an issue this is. Maybe I just pay more attention because it's affecting me first. I'm trying to think about how I acted when Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, how I was so distanced from it that I really didn't know what it was like to be there. I only knew what I saw on the news. Anyone not in Santa Rosa right now -- anyone still living somewhere beyond the reach of the virus -- you have no idea. You have NO idea. This won't just pass along. This is much worse than that. In case you're not watching the news, you should know that a meteor landed near Guerneville (thirty minutes away from Santa Rosa) ten days ago and immediately got anyone nearby sick with this mutative virus. They closed down Guerneville but the virus got out. It was in Santa Rosa seven days ago. And like I said, it's already showing up in big cities around here. By tomorrow, I bet most of California will be infected.
And even though everyone's telling me that it'll all be okay... I'm not so sure. I can put off hope for rescue until this weekend. Maybe. I'll be out of food by Sunday. In the meantime I think I'll keep trying to talk to Belen (she never called me back like she said she would) and see if her family has a car. If they do, then that's one flicker of hope I haven't considered. Because even I have a car -- a Jeep Cherokee with plenty of seating -- but it's parked outside of the fence on the street where the zombies are. Anyway it doesn't matter right now. I just like to know that Belen is alive and somebody I can talk to who understands what's happening. Listening to the news makes me feel like a test rat in some experiment.
I might light up. Two hits. Just to calm my nerves.
It's almost noon -- still pretty early. I've already run out of things to keep me busy. I had a piece of bread for breakfast and a glass of tap water. I'm thinking about digging through my closet for the bong and lighting up -- even though two weeks ago I quit cold-turkey when I applied for that job at the River Rock Casino. I stopped smoking when I heard they did drug testing and, since that job pays so much better, I thought it would be worth it. But that's sort of a pointless idea if zombies are spreading across the country. Some reports on the news today have been talking about virus outbreaks in San Francisco, Sacramento, and even as far south as Santa Cruz and as far north as Portland. I'm guessing that the whole west coast will be gone before the weekend. Every day brings more and more bad news.
I talked to Belen today. She called me back. She's healthy and safe with her parents in Fountain Grove -- this neighborhood about ten minutes away -- and we talked for almost an hour before her parents needed her to help with some chore, block up some window. Who knows how long cellphones will work... It was good to hear that she's okay. I called her -- and everyone I knew -- over the past few days and only a couple have replied. People not from Santa Rosa, mostly. Other than Belen, I haven't heard from anyone from work. I keep my phone charged, just in case, making use of the elecricity that might not last for much longer.
What bothers me the most right now is that I might be safe enough to leave my apartment and at least walk around the complex. There's that ten-foot-tall fence that surrounds the whole place and, if someone was smart enough to lock the front gate, that should be protection from the outside streets. The zombies can see through the fence, however, and depending on how many there are -- they might be numbered enough to rush the fence and force their way over the top. So then I stay in my apartment because I don't want to be the one who agitates them into a full-force attack. Thus, it feels like I'm my own prisoner, you know? Other than the moaning and the occasional gunshot, there's not much going on that makes me think I'm in the middle of a zombie invasion. And because of that, I'm still remarkably calm.
A little marijuana might help, too. But I'm still putting that off. I've got to keep my mind active and ready... Though seven days of lethargy makes me feel usueless, anyway. I just meander around the apartment, upstairs and downstairs. I play videogames for five minutes at a time. I watch the news for hope of good news. I draw. I write in this blog. I send e-mails out to all my friends and family members. My mom keeps saying she's trying to find people to take her into Santa Rosa so she can rescue me. I got another e-mail from my dad today that suggested I find the nearest sporting goods store (to get a shotgun, he suggested) and I Google-mapped the nearest one to be about fifteen minutes down Mendocino. Everyone else I've been talking to has been telling me to stay inside, stay quiet, and wait for it to pass.
I don't think people realize how big of an issue this is. Maybe I just pay more attention because it's affecting me first. I'm trying to think about how I acted when Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, how I was so distanced from it that I really didn't know what it was like to be there. I only knew what I saw on the news. Anyone not in Santa Rosa right now -- anyone still living somewhere beyond the reach of the virus -- you have no idea. You have NO idea. This won't just pass along. This is much worse than that. In case you're not watching the news, you should know that a meteor landed near Guerneville (thirty minutes away from Santa Rosa) ten days ago and immediately got anyone nearby sick with this mutative virus. They closed down Guerneville but the virus got out. It was in Santa Rosa seven days ago. And like I said, it's already showing up in big cities around here. By tomorrow, I bet most of California will be infected.
And even though everyone's telling me that it'll all be okay... I'm not so sure. I can put off hope for rescue until this weekend. Maybe. I'll be out of food by Sunday. In the meantime I think I'll keep trying to talk to Belen (she never called me back like she said she would) and see if her family has a car. If they do, then that's one flicker of hope I haven't considered. Because even I have a car -- a Jeep Cherokee with plenty of seating -- but it's parked outside of the fence on the street where the zombies are. Anyway it doesn't matter right now. I just like to know that Belen is alive and somebody I can talk to who understands what's happening. Listening to the news makes me feel like a test rat in some experiment.
I might light up. Two hits. Just to calm my nerves.
1 comment:
Take the advice of Sublime. It's always best to smoke two joints before doing anything, including smoking two joints.
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