Blog Post # 1

            This past week I had to put my dog to sleep after 13 years of her being like a sister to me, and a huge part of our family. Oddly enough this tragedy has hit my family on the same week that my first Zomblog and reflection is due.  While struggling for ideas and parallels to draw on for this first blog post; I realized that the feelings my mother, father, and I felt while watching our dog Derby struggle and grow weaker, un able to help, were very similar feelings a citizen in my community might have watching a loved one who has been infected or bitten by a Zombie.

Just as my family and I were unable to help Derby as her central nervous system was failing, the same would be the case in a Zombie apocalypse.  Having seen the movie I-Robot staring Will Smith; the reality of a Zombie apocalypse and loosing a dog or any loved one to a Zombie like disease resonated in my mind writing this blog post. As a citizen member of my community, and having just dealt with a real life traumatic family issue, where hard decisions had to be made, I couldn’t help but think of the clip we watched from Spoiler.  I began to think about if Derby had been exposed or bitten by Zombies that we would have to make a similar decision we did for nervous system failure, but deal with it in a manner similar to the way the authorities and doctors in Spoiler had to.

Seeing first hand with Derby how hard it is was not being able to communicate or help a loved one dying from a disease is incredibly hard, and all I can picture in my mind is the father with the deer rifle in the window in the scene we watched from Walking Dead.  It was brutal enough watching an animal that has been part of our family for so long struggle with a disease and grow weaker, I cant even imagine what it would be like if that were my mother, my father, a sibling, or any relative infected and still “alive” but unable to cure.  Perhaps this is what drives our modern day infatuation with Zombies, and the “walking dead” … the un-curable reality.  The fact that Zombies represent the unknown, the intangible, and something that is right in front of us yet mentally and physically a world away from what we as humans can comprehend and understand.  Just as no Veterinarian or human was every really able to get inside Derby’s head to help her, the same is true for the relationship between Zombies and humans. Maybe this is why it almost feels worse when an animal member of the family like a cat or dog dies or becomes ill. The lack of communication, and failure to find complete understanding makes it harder on us humans not affected, and all the more difficult to take action accordingly. Just as the husband in the Walking Dead knows that deep down his wife never wanted to be infected, never wanted to become a Zombie, he is still terribly unable to “relieve her misery” or kill her.

Fortunately for my family and me there is no (known) Zombie apocalypse-taking place at the moment.  However since the start of this class I often find myself blending real world reality with the “what if’s” if we really were living during a Zombie apocalypse. As a citizen member of my community I am just a common man in the community, and with that on my mind I wondered how we would deal with a situation like this during a Zombie apocalypse. Would we have been able to get the dog help? Would this have really be a priority in a situation like the one faced by the characters in Courtney Summer’s work This is Not a Test when the outside world as we know it is deteriorating rapidly around us? These are interesting questions a citizen thinks about when he starts applying what is happening in his current life, to how he would deal with these same events during a Zombie apocalypse.