You know that feeling you get, when you're reading, watching something, or hell even talking and someone mentions breathing? Or you're in the doctor's office and they put a shiny bit of ice against your back and tell you to 'breathe normally'?
That feeling, that awareness that you're breathing. The worry you're not doing it enough, the way it sits on your mind. Scientifically the part of the brain that maintains breathing is the medulla oblongata, which is the lower part of the brain stem-which connects to the spinal cord and so on. When you read it though, you have this drive this impulse to be in control, until you are.
When you are in control you find it very difficult to give up that control and let your body function normally. Not because you don't want to breathe, but because it is on your mind to and you better get it done.
That's how I feel right now. I have control but don't want it, and unlike you I can't try to think of something else to forget it.
Why?
Well it's because I'm dead.
Oh please don't feel bad for me, in the world I lived in being dead isn't so bad. Aside from eating people here and there, moaning and groaning, and of course rotting-dead's not as bad as it used to be. Plus I'm not alone, I'm surrounded by the dead. An old woman dragging a leash, couples holding hands up and down the flickering escalator, other couples flopping limp and dry body parts together. Yep I'm living the dream of death here. It's funny; in life I never liked airports. Now I live in one-ironic to say live. There should be a better word, there is a better word, but my brain is probably starting to rot. Means I'm a little dimmer than I used to be.
Still even with that I'm the smartest corpse you're going to meet. I'm also the newest one here, a meal interrupted only to rise again and follow the ones who would have eaten me. My name, I'm pretty sure is Claudette, everyone I knew in life called me Detta though. It was a nickname brought on by an accent I used to have-I can't speak anymore. My lips can move to form words, but see when the zombies go for food. They go for the throat, and guess what's in the human throat? That's right vocal chords!
Mine are gone. I can't even make the usual moaning sounds my fellow dead do. I used to sing, which takes both breath and voice. I don't have either anymore, being dead sucks-but hey it's a living.
There I go making jokes again, I'm so funny. I'd laugh if I could, really. I'm dead what else have I got to do?
Today is normal, today is boring. I stumble about, one foot on the cold floor-when I was killed. I kicked, one of my shoes came off, so I'm in the awkward position of being the only zombie with just one shoe. Sure there are many of us with only one limb-but one shoe? For a corpse I am incredibly self-conscious. The only thing I could be glad of was the lack of rigor, livor and algor-mortis.
Basically getting stiff, swelling up, getting cold. Well I've skipped the middle one at least. I'm good-looking to be dead I think. My hair is still put up, bits of red flash in front of my eyes-in my impaired state I thought it was blood and tried to bite once, my dress is still mostly blue and my little jacket mostly white. I died pretty, but the thing is-as time passes I can't remember why I was dressed up.
It's like for every day you are dead you lose another of your life. I can remember myself, my name, my voice, how I loved to paint and sing-but I can't remember dying. I can't remember the people who made up my living life. I can't remember life really-just death. Just being at the airport, walking always walking.
I don't sleep and aside from passing bodies and occasional hunting parties. Nothing happens here. There is no measure of time in this afterlife.
I don't know how long I've been here anymore but it feels like a lifetime and a breath all at once. You know the kid, the ones the doctor tells you to take, and the one you suck in as a book mentions the act. The one you take as you open your eyes and realize you no longer need to.. That's how I feel about where I am now. There's no forward or backward, there is just one breath I need to take.
Only problem is there's a hole in my throat, and the dead don't need air.