66 Zombies on a Highway

- Never have I seen so many unhappy people in one place.
- What about the airport?
- Well, that doesn't really count ... ok, I suppose it does, but not for this context. An airport is a place of great stress, you know? People leaving other people behind, returning perhaps when they're not wanted. Or even anxiety in anticipation of their arrival - it's all a tricky business. Smart are the few that pick up their ... arrivals from a gate at the edge of the airport.
- Right, so go on, about this place then.
- I'm seeing all these beautiful happy people everywhere - printed up on the posters. The rest of the shoppers here are miserable. Apart from that baby in the bloody pushchair, I can't see a single person with a smile on their face.
- Empty wallets make for sad faces?
- Sure they do, but everyone here - I mean, take a look around you - how many of these people are truly ... okay, forget about the whole materialism and if we can really be happy in that regard side of it. Can you see any ... fuck, just any mildly pleasant faces?
- As much as I'd love to contradict you ... no, I can't.
- Exactly! Therein, with little subtlety, lies my point. Maybe it's this country - this shit little island cut off from the rest of the world, swearing allegiance to an old hag who would care little if they all died, as long as she got her money from the taxes. But maybe, just maybe, it's people in this kind of a society and world.
- But there are people ... that do visit malls like this one - and that are happy.
- Perhaps they are - still, they are few in number and shall perhaps eternally remain so.
- Though, when you think about it, people don't come to malls to be happy - that's what parties are for. Where's the endless stream of alcohol, bizarre conversations or, better yet, people looking to be happy? Like at a stand-up comedian's show - the folks there are waiting to laugh - eagerly, like dogs - they're waiting for the punch line to come home and BAM! They're splitting their sides over a knock, knock joke.
- True ... I still don't get it. I don't like it. I don't like ... well, for one, I don't care much for parties. They're an exercise in self-destruction. In de-evolution, driven by sheer desperation, at whatever level, and by an uncompromising fear of lonliness. People that are simply unable to accept that they may very well be alone - without the wallowing in pain and sadness. Just to know and acknowledge that to be alone is not a sin and it is not evil or wrong. It just happens when you choose to ignore the one voice that has screamed your name for so fucking long that perhaps they're just too tired to speak in the face of such blatant Fucking ignorance!
- Uhhh ... Hmm. Okay, so you're ... not talking about malls anymore, are you?
- It's like that Romero film - I mix them up ... Dawn of the Dead, was it? The Zombies going to the mall - the in-your-face commentary on the consumer masses. This is what they are. Picture 66 of them on the Motorway doddling down the bridge and through the toll gate. All to get to this place ... this ... safe haven.
- Until it closes.
- Well, a Zombie wouldn't really care if it was closed or not.
- What about the security guards?
- Well, the Zombie would just eat his ... or, rarely enough, her brains out.
- Rarely enough?
- I'm being determinedly sexist.
- Ah ... that's ok, then.