By and copyright of Oen Quinn author of the Time Warriros and Zombie Blues
cover by Conaire McMullan
The zombie rollercoaster continues as the undead continue to give us their view of being a rotting corpse under the control of Mother Nature.
This time round we meet Comic Book zombie and the zombie who thinks the ending of Toy Story 3 is sacrilege. What happens when a zombie’s faith in God is rocked to its very foundation and why is the spirit of Elvis Presley still going strong in the vast
roaming herds?
A zombie tells why the covid pandemic was much preferable to being undead and why having a club foot makes you feel normal as a zombie. Plus more zombie characters than you can shake a stick at.
Available on Amazon now!
Comparison Zombie
It felt like life quickly dissolved into draining a cycle of work, dinner, ten minutes with the kids, Internet, TV and the wife, sleep then repeat.
I’d worked since I was seventeen having totally messed up my A levels and failed them completely. There are points in everyone’s lives where you wish you had turned left instead of right. That was my first one right there. I had shone in my O level results (they don’t even call them that these days) with great grades but instead of picking the subjects with the higher grades, I picked the ones with the lower ones. To this day I have no idea why I did that but there as no teacher standing up to guide us to focus on our strengths. It was a grammar school where sports prowess was prevalent and students good at ports were favoured and almost revered.
Students like me who fell between the cracks of the jocks and the computer nerds sort of tended to fade into the background afraid to speak. Someone else who could kick a ball or write algorithms would more likely be the one who would be listened to.
Not me or those like me; never.
Woulda, shoulda, coulda.
I could never stand tall like those jocks with girls hanging off their arms from no age or who the teachers looked at differently from the likes of me. I was slightly overweight and wore glasses. People like me were the friend that the girls’ loved as a confidant but never saw in the shagging sense. Add to that the biggest thing that affected me from school was I was bullied relentlessly from primary school by the same guy and his gang. There is no easy answer to bullying no matter what anyone tells you. Fucking so called experts haven’t a clue what they are talking about mostly because they have never been bullied in the first place. I’m sure right now you all have an idea in your heads what bullying is but I can tell you bullying is like a dark ripple that can touch your entire life. Every victim will tell you of the isolation and loneliness. You have no confidence because you think that everyone thinks the same thing as the bully. You believe that if you stand up and fight back then you are going to get pummelled to death. There was no one who stood up for me. No one spoke up in my defence even on the quiet. I’m not like that now o course. My tongue could cut steel and I refuse to keep my mouth shut. My wife shakes her head sometimes at some of the things that come out of my gob. I didn’t care. I had been silent for too long. Since I was seven years old and after that fateful day in the playground, I had cowed in the shadows for a quiet life. The other guys around me that I went to school with just seemed to be doing what they should be and becoming men. They got their grades and moved on to what careers they had seemed destined to have. Some got married and were having kids while I just got pubic hair and grew taller. All the time I just got through each day best I could. I’m thankful there was no social media in my day.
No man is an island a friend later in life reminded me no matter how thick headed and independent I was in adult life. So before you start thinking I was a complete pussy let me take you to the day where what I should have done is flatten the bully. With one fist in his face my entire future might have changed.
There was this boy in my class, bit of a div, who was going about one lunch time asking everyone who they loved. He was getting the strangest looks and being told to piss off. I watched him and thought, you prat. Then he came to me.
One question; who do you love? And being the smart arse I was replied, “You.”
The class bully heard me. He leapt on it like a tiger on a gazelle. Suddenly his voice was joined by others, then more. It seemed the entire playground was chanting my name. It seemed to grow until it filled the entire world.
Mickey is a homo! Mickey is a homo! Oh by the way, my name is Michael, Michael Flanagan. I suppose I should have told you that at the start of my tale.
The Time Warriors and Beyond 