Zombie presence: strong. Few suspected Hostiles, one known Troll (stupid and violent). Plenty of Amoebas. I swear, one just looked at me and multiplied.
The unfortunate side-effect of the cure is cancer, for which the good doctors are checking me. The cancer associated with the cure attacks the reproductive organs, trying to save them from mutating into state-owned ‘farms’. Very often though this ends in sterility.
My doctor, a Czech named Dabrowska, has been compromised. Or is on holiday. You never know with these academic types. I abhor state-run facilities.
Suspected Hostile Zombie is trying to read my notes. I scribble smaller but he still looks. A few minutes ago he was reading the head professor’s name off a poster. It reads: Prof. Dreosti, and for half an hour he entertained himself by randomly exclaiming her name with different intonations.
He assesses my assessing of potential ACC. That’s Anti Conversion Comrades. There isn’t much ACC potential. One may be suitable for breeding purposes only.
Potential ACC loses all potential. My contact lenses’ fault.
This day is turning out to be about as fun as an Epson Salt enema.
But there are a few lessons to be learned, e.g.:
Previously Hostile Zombies neutralized by excessive chemotherapy, but only because it near kills them.
A diet of jelly and porkchops, like almost everything in this world, is not conducive to much cognitive activity.
The only thing worse than a Troll is a radioactive Troll shot full of poisonous chemicals. Frizzled afros ensue.
The cleaning staff here have a penchant for identifying Hostiles. The technique is very simple: shove a mop into their feet repeatedly and see what happens.
Murphy’s Law: Hostile Zombies in my immediate vicinity inevitably bring along large reserves of food and will consume it when I am at my hungriest. They won’t share and it’s dangerous to ask – like shouting “You fuckers can’t shoot me!” at a rifle competition.
Loud popping sounds aren’t necessarily gunshots. Be warned.
Two Hours On…Survival Rate: 25%
An oncology department, Zombie infested or otherwise, is not pretty when it approaches noon – and, by extension, lunch time. People – an odd assortment of Zombies, Trolls, and the inevitable Amoebas – scurry, yawn and cuddle, festering sallow thoughts against the Institution.
The cuddling is probably the worst.
The lackey staff, footsoldiers of the better educated and promiscuously overpaid Doctors, are playing their fifth hundred round of Bureaucracy! and the score is a thousand all. The end, thus, is clearly not in sight.
As a last ditch effort at remaining conscious, I try to see people’s auras, but this is not an endearing activity. Amoebas, frequently paranoid in the extreme, especially dislike it if you stare several centimeters above and just beyond their head for any length of time. And there are few things worse than a paranoid Amoeba, e.g. SA President Thabo Mbeki.
Conversation just isn’t an option either as anyone, Zombie or not, will attest – doctors waiting rooms are notoriously dangerous unless you’re really interested in your neighbour’s entire medical history, starting with his masturbation addiction aged five and three quarters.
My neighbour’s smell seriously suggests that his visit here today is strongly appropriate. The general question seems to be, “What died?” But now I’m being cruel, perhaps; he is just a harmless Zombie after all, and he has no hair. And there are very interesting things coming out his ears, dislodged and quarried by his cracked, probing fingertips.
More Zombies arrive. They loiter in and accost the on-going game of Bureaucracy! They don’t achieve anything. The staff start a game of “Where’s that File?” No one knows.
Yet Later…Survival Rate 10% and Less and Less
Grown man is crying. Wife comforts him. This particular grown man is not the picture of a rueful testosterone driven being giving over to his “softer self”, either, he is rather prissy to begin with. Pointy shoes with heels and a posh, wine-connoisseur sort of accent. A little like Dumbledore but not nearly as cool.
Zombie in immediate area is trying to send an SMS. Age apparent in the way he holds the cell phone: with two hands, one supporting the phone, the other jabbing nervously at the buttons with its forefinger.
My Zombie recognizance is pretty much stuffed to the seams. I read the SMSer’s large print western over his shoulder. It’s not very good.
Still Later…Survival Rate: a Sheer Miracle
Lunch has come and lunch has gone, regrettably without me consuming anything. My sojourn in the waiting room is bound to be slimming if nothing else. This upsets me. Sizeism and mass conversion play for the same team, ie controlling the way you regard yourself, and thus controlling the very way you regard the world.
Fewer Zombies generally. One suspicious Zombie in the corner seems to be having cyber sex on cell. Suspicions confirmed when the phone suddenly blears up. This Zombie freaks out when the battery goes flat.
