Outbreak reports from around the world
A British Zombie in Paris
It was in the city of Paris that I stumbled across a most peculiar sight.
As tourists are wont to do, I was meandering through the undergrowth of the Bois de Boulogne, itself technically outwith the bournes of the city, when towards me stumbled a man and a woman.
I would say man, but this specimen possessed something strange and inexorable in his eye, his gait that of an absinthe-soaked septuagenarian in the body of a twenty-something man. His look was wild, something from the windswept plains of Russia, while his sense of costume was, as is typical of Parisians, impeccable.
Upon closer inspection, this couple, whom I presumed to be in the Bois for the same leisurely pursuits as your faithful correspondent, were doing nothing of the sort. Intermittently, he turned and in animal fashion attempted to kiss her, in a display of what I took for lustful attraction, only to be rebuffed by her with a stick.
Indeed, looking closer still, I remarked that not only was the tottering man beaten from his presumed mate with a stick, but that, in a fit of inexplicable paradox, he was also connected to her by a leash around his neck. She would whack this poor, carnal-chasing soul, only to tug him back with a pull on the lead that wrapped tightly around the bulging veins of his neck. This was a practice uncommon even in the damned Bois de Boulogne.
But then, as the man crouched and relieved himself in the open air, sounds of gutteral satisfaction rebounding from tree to tree, I saw his eyes, a terrible white painting over the lost blue that might once have signified a human being. For, it seemed clear to me that this man had no soul. And that I had in fact, not for the first time in my expeditions, stumbled across a zombie.
Find more videos like this on The Sentinel
Gay Paris
Barney and Annie had moved to Paris as a celebration of their love for one another. He an astrophysicist, she an archaeologist, they had chosen together to flee the mindless banality of British and American conversation respectively (he hailed from Kent, the Garden of England; she is from Lake Tahoe, where even Nothing is an interesting pastime) and to set up home in Paris, near that celebration of intellectual independence, the Bastille.
At first, their life had been a romantic idyll: penniless, they drank cheap wine on the banks of the Seine, watching the bateaux mouches drift past, their lights illuminating the furtive kisses that the lovers' wine-stained lips would exchange, Notre Dame looking on approvingly at this latest chapter in the city of great love affairs. They would make love on the floor of their unfurnished apartment, sleeping in each other’s arms, waking each other every few minutes by accident and by design, each time looking into each other’s eyes and exchanging a kiss to remind each other that this really was happening, that they really were with each other here in this heartland of European culture. And every once in a while, buoyed by some money won at a game of Tarot, Barney and Annie would eat out, sharing four oysters together because it was all they could afford, and surviving by the generosity of waiters and chefs who, as happens in a city that values love above all things, would offer them free dishes, trying out on this radiant couple their new recipes d’amour, so natural should it be that the world forgoes all desire for material gain in the face of true love.
I was a zombie bride
However, for every kindly soul that Paris boasts, it is a city that also contains a dark underside: the lonely dogwalkers, the indifferent shop owners, the drunken boulangers, the abusive clochards. One night, in May of this year, Barney and Annie were arm-in-arm along the avenue Richard-Lenoir when a man that Annie describes only as a beggar approached them. Loping at them as if with one leg shorter than the other, he lunged for Annie in the most vile of manners, only for Annie to be rescued at the last by her handsome Barney, who found himself grappling with a man of unearthly strength. The clochard bit Barney on the neck, and it was only with the help of Annie that he managed to escape the gnashing teeth of this horrific nightcrawler.
Barney and Annie returned to their little apartment, so neatly laid out, furnished now with the unwanted trappings of friends and acquaintances who, unlike this spiritless clodo, had been charmed by Annie and Barney’s wistful glances. Barney needed to lie down, complaining of nausea and severe muscular pain all over his body. Soon he began contorting in every conceivable direction, his body writhing in a most unnatural manner.
Annie, afraid, could think of nothing else but to restrain him, so afeared was she that Barney might snap his own neck, so wrathful were his throes of agony. And this measure is what saved both Annie’s life and their relationship, although few married couples survive a relationship featuring such a disparity of sickness and health, let alone couples drunk on blissful young love.
For it soon became apparent that Barney had turned into a creature of the living dead, a zombie whose body is animated, but whose spirit has dwindled into nothingness. Annie, however, incapable of losing Barney, did not behead him as is so often the recourse for couples of whom one member has been turned, but instead learned to live with him in his new form.
Find more videos like this on The Sentinel
As the footage found [see accompanying videos] will testify, there is no taming the zombie that now inhabits Barney’s body, but Annie cannot bear to lose her love. And so, incapable of taking Barney out of the country, and unwilling to leave him behind at the mercy of what she terms his affliction, Annie receives a small stipend from her parents back in Lake Tahoe, just enough to get by, that along with favours from friends. Annie is the first person I have met who has decided to maintain a vague semblance of a relationship with her now-zombie lover.
Tractatus Logico-Philozombificus
I have seen and indeed had to terminate the so-called life of many a zombie, but never have I seen anything like this. But, after countless decapitations, dismemberments, and just plain brutalising of zombies with whatever tool comes to hand—be it hammer, vase or revolver—I think I have learned something remarkable from this woman from Lake Tahoe. And that is: there is no need to kill a zombie, when looking after it can also be done.
Find more videos like this on The Sentinel
“My love for Barney has definitely evolved since he changed,” Annie explains during our second interview, one arranged after I initially bade my greetings to them in the Bois de Boulogne (and after which I enjoyed to see Annie take Barney dancing to the music of street performers in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower—apparently Barney still responds positively to music, although, alas, the all-too-rare footage of this sight has since been lost). “But I feel that even now, as before, he brings out the best in me.”
Find more videos like this on The Sentinel
And this Barney certainly does: Annie faithfully feeds him, bathes him, puts him to bed, airs him and helps him to relieve himself, all with the patience of a contemporary Florence Nightingale. “Looking after Barney is a twenty four seven job,” she says. “But I don’t think of him as retarded; more like a brain in a vat, incapable of getting out what is in there, language lost forever, but still with the basic needs.”
Find more videos like this on The Sentinel
Find more videos like this on The Sentinel
Asked if she wants to let go of Barney, she says no, even though friends urge her to dump him—in the Seine, as shockingly is recommended by Barney’s dentist in this revelatory footage.
Find more videos like this on The Sentinel
Annie says she wants to study the effects of this disease on Barney, to see if she can learn anything about the condition medically known as homo zombificus, ways to counter its seemingly lethal effects. And this is the real sign of Annie’s intelligence and bravery, her constancy and ability to care, which far surpass the jaded cynique of your correspondent: Annie is the world’s first zombologist, interested not in killing, but in understanding.
“Sure, Barney would bite me and kill me given half the chance, but that’s not such a big deal to me. My pet cat would bite me and I’m sure it would have killed me if it had been big enough. Sharks eat humans, as do snakes and lions, but we don’t eradicate them. We study them, work out how and why they are contributing to the biosphere. Okay, your body becomes reanimated and you yourself turn into a zombie, which doesn’t happen when a normal creature bites you, but you’re dead by then. It doesn’t matter.”
I ask Annie if she is an atheist. She replies: “If you’re asking whether this experience has made me reconsider my relationship with God, then I’d say no. I’m not sure I believe in God, so I’d class myself as an agnostic, but I’m not dismissing the possibility that this is just a test, for Barney and for me. You know, it [insert an uncharacteristic expletive] me off that the movies always take this male, gung-ho response to zombies and any other threat for that matter: kill it. Why kill it? Maybe it’s because I’m a woman and we’ve suffered the same raw deal as zombies, both in life and in the movies. I just don’t get it. Besides, Barney, when he’s not breathing in your face [an experience I urge readers never to share], he can still be pretty cute.”
And with this, Annie turns to her lover with a smile, and I get the impression that Annie may still find ways for Barney to satisfy her provided that he is under the proper restraint and, I imagine, that she is taking the correct precautions.
But this is a question that I feel is too intrusive at this point in our relationship, and so I let that look of love dissipate into the warm and sweet-smelling Parisian air. Annie and Barney, this couple that is still a couple, the first mixed dead-undead couple I have ever seen, are pointing the way forward to a future not of violent conflict, but of love and understanding, one born out of humanity’s capacity to protect its braindead brethren. I shall be returning with a full AHRB grant to find out more about Barney’s progress with Annie in the future, once my findings, together with the short films attached, have been presented to the board. In the meantime, I wish them both the best of luck.
Find more videos like this on The Sentinel
NEWS UPDATE
Message received 26 August: Annie reports Barney seemingly doing better, but is broke. If you are in Paris, please do look them up and buy this brave couple a drink to show your support.
Guide to Videos
Toilet
First unexpected footage of Barney taking Annie out in the Bois de Boulogne.
http://thesentinel.ning.com/video/video/show?id=2213723%3AVideo%3A1302
Corridor
Annie quickly responded positively to my interest in Barney and her relationship with him. She invited me to her home; this is how typically she keeps Barney occupied during the day.
http://thesentinel.ning.com/video/video/show?id=2213723%3AVideo%3A1304
Feeding 1
Annie explains how Barney seems to survive on cow liver.
http://thesentinel.ning.com/video/video/show?id=2213723%3AVideo%3A1306
Feeding 2
However, Annie, worried for Barney’s health, insists upon feeding him vitamins as well. She does not know what effect this has on his health.
http://thesentinel.ning.com/video/video/show?id=2213723%3AVideo%3A1310
Street
Annie takes Barney for a walk. Annie is always careful to observe that there are not too many passers by when she takes him out.
http://thesentinel.ning.com/video/video/show?id=2213723%3AVideo%3A1312
Dentist 1
Alex, a Parisian dentist who claims to have treated several zombies before, gives Barney an injection.
http://thesentinel.ning.com/video/video/show?id=2213723%3AVideo%3A1316
Dentist 2
Alex removes one of Barney’s few remaining teeth and uncharitably recommends termination of the relationship.
http://thesentinel.ning.com/video/video/show?id=2213723:Video:1318
Bastille
Annie walks Barney home, determined that their relationship will continue long and strong.
http://thesentinel.ning.com/video/video/show?id=2213723:Video:1322
Lost footage
Barney enjoying a dance to the music of the street performers near the Trocadéro, opposite the Eiffel Tower.
Seeming corrupted file
Annie giving Barney a shower.
As tourists are wont to do, I was meandering through the undergrowth of the Bois de Boulogne, itself technically outwith the bournes of the city, when towards me stumbled a man and a woman.
I would say man, but this specimen possessed something strange and inexorable in his eye, his gait that of an absinthe-soaked septuagenarian in the body of a twenty-something man. His look was wild, something from the windswept plains of Russia, while his sense of costume was, as is typical of Parisians, impeccable.
Upon closer inspection, this couple, whom I presumed to be in the Bois for the same leisurely pursuits as your faithful correspondent, were doing nothing of the sort. Intermittently, he turned and in animal fashion attempted to kiss her, in a display of what I took for lustful attraction, only to be rebuffed by her with a stick.
Indeed, looking closer still, I remarked that not only was the tottering man beaten from his presumed mate with a stick, but that, in a fit of inexplicable paradox, he was also connected to her by a leash around his neck. She would whack this poor, carnal-chasing soul, only to tug him back with a pull on the lead that wrapped tightly around the bulging veins of his neck. This was a practice uncommon even in the damned Bois de Boulogne.
But then, as the man crouched and relieved himself in the open air, sounds of gutteral satisfaction rebounding from tree to tree, I saw his eyes, a terrible white painting over the lost blue that might once have signified a human being. For, it seemed clear to me that this man had no soul. And that I had in fact, not for the first time in my expeditions, stumbled across a zombie.
Find more videos like this on The Sentinel
Gay Paris
Barney and Annie had moved to Paris as a celebration of their love for one another. He an astrophysicist, she an archaeologist, they had chosen together to flee the mindless banality of British and American conversation respectively (he hailed from Kent, the Garden of England; she is from Lake Tahoe, where even Nothing is an interesting pastime) and to set up home in Paris, near that celebration of intellectual independence, the Bastille.
At first, their life had been a romantic idyll: penniless, they drank cheap wine on the banks of the Seine, watching the bateaux mouches drift past, their lights illuminating the furtive kisses that the lovers' wine-stained lips would exchange, Notre Dame looking on approvingly at this latest chapter in the city of great love affairs. They would make love on the floor of their unfurnished apartment, sleeping in each other’s arms, waking each other every few minutes by accident and by design, each time looking into each other’s eyes and exchanging a kiss to remind each other that this really was happening, that they really were with each other here in this heartland of European culture. And every once in a while, buoyed by some money won at a game of Tarot, Barney and Annie would eat out, sharing four oysters together because it was all they could afford, and surviving by the generosity of waiters and chefs who, as happens in a city that values love above all things, would offer them free dishes, trying out on this radiant couple their new recipes d’amour, so natural should it be that the world forgoes all desire for material gain in the face of true love.
I was a zombie bride
However, for every kindly soul that Paris boasts, it is a city that also contains a dark underside: the lonely dogwalkers, the indifferent shop owners, the drunken boulangers, the abusive clochards. One night, in May of this year, Barney and Annie were arm-in-arm along the avenue Richard-Lenoir when a man that Annie describes only as a beggar approached them. Loping at them as if with one leg shorter than the other, he lunged for Annie in the most vile of manners, only for Annie to be rescued at the last by her handsome Barney, who found himself grappling with a man of unearthly strength. The clochard bit Barney on the neck, and it was only with the help of Annie that he managed to escape the gnashing teeth of this horrific nightcrawler.
Barney and Annie returned to their little apartment, so neatly laid out, furnished now with the unwanted trappings of friends and acquaintances who, unlike this spiritless clodo, had been charmed by Annie and Barney’s wistful glances. Barney needed to lie down, complaining of nausea and severe muscular pain all over his body. Soon he began contorting in every conceivable direction, his body writhing in a most unnatural manner.
Annie, afraid, could think of nothing else but to restrain him, so afeared was she that Barney might snap his own neck, so wrathful were his throes of agony. And this measure is what saved both Annie’s life and their relationship, although few married couples survive a relationship featuring such a disparity of sickness and health, let alone couples drunk on blissful young love.
For it soon became apparent that Barney had turned into a creature of the living dead, a zombie whose body is animated, but whose spirit has dwindled into nothingness. Annie, however, incapable of losing Barney, did not behead him as is so often the recourse for couples of whom one member has been turned, but instead learned to live with him in his new form.
Find more videos like this on The Sentinel
As the footage found [see accompanying videos] will testify, there is no taming the zombie that now inhabits Barney’s body, but Annie cannot bear to lose her love. And so, incapable of taking Barney out of the country, and unwilling to leave him behind at the mercy of what she terms his affliction, Annie receives a small stipend from her parents back in Lake Tahoe, just enough to get by, that along with favours from friends. Annie is the first person I have met who has decided to maintain a vague semblance of a relationship with her now-zombie lover.
Tractatus Logico-Philozombificus
I have seen and indeed had to terminate the so-called life of many a zombie, but never have I seen anything like this. But, after countless decapitations, dismemberments, and just plain brutalising of zombies with whatever tool comes to hand—be it hammer, vase or revolver—I think I have learned something remarkable from this woman from Lake Tahoe. And that is: there is no need to kill a zombie, when looking after it can also be done.
Find more videos like this on The Sentinel
“My love for Barney has definitely evolved since he changed,” Annie explains during our second interview, one arranged after I initially bade my greetings to them in the Bois de Boulogne (and after which I enjoyed to see Annie take Barney dancing to the music of street performers in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower—apparently Barney still responds positively to music, although, alas, the all-too-rare footage of this sight has since been lost). “But I feel that even now, as before, he brings out the best in me.”
Find more videos like this on The Sentinel
And this Barney certainly does: Annie faithfully feeds him, bathes him, puts him to bed, airs him and helps him to relieve himself, all with the patience of a contemporary Florence Nightingale. “Looking after Barney is a twenty four seven job,” she says. “But I don’t think of him as retarded; more like a brain in a vat, incapable of getting out what is in there, language lost forever, but still with the basic needs.”
Find more videos like this on The Sentinel
Find more videos like this on The Sentinel
Asked if she wants to let go of Barney, she says no, even though friends urge her to dump him—in the Seine, as shockingly is recommended by Barney’s dentist in this revelatory footage.
Find more videos like this on The Sentinel
Annie says she wants to study the effects of this disease on Barney, to see if she can learn anything about the condition medically known as homo zombificus, ways to counter its seemingly lethal effects. And this is the real sign of Annie’s intelligence and bravery, her constancy and ability to care, which far surpass the jaded cynique of your correspondent: Annie is the world’s first zombologist, interested not in killing, but in understanding.
“Sure, Barney would bite me and kill me given half the chance, but that’s not such a big deal to me. My pet cat would bite me and I’m sure it would have killed me if it had been big enough. Sharks eat humans, as do snakes and lions, but we don’t eradicate them. We study them, work out how and why they are contributing to the biosphere. Okay, your body becomes reanimated and you yourself turn into a zombie, which doesn’t happen when a normal creature bites you, but you’re dead by then. It doesn’t matter.”
I ask Annie if she is an atheist. She replies: “If you’re asking whether this experience has made me reconsider my relationship with God, then I’d say no. I’m not sure I believe in God, so I’d class myself as an agnostic, but I’m not dismissing the possibility that this is just a test, for Barney and for me. You know, it [insert an uncharacteristic expletive] me off that the movies always take this male, gung-ho response to zombies and any other threat for that matter: kill it. Why kill it? Maybe it’s because I’m a woman and we’ve suffered the same raw deal as zombies, both in life and in the movies. I just don’t get it. Besides, Barney, when he’s not breathing in your face [an experience I urge readers never to share], he can still be pretty cute.”
And with this, Annie turns to her lover with a smile, and I get the impression that Annie may still find ways for Barney to satisfy her provided that he is under the proper restraint and, I imagine, that she is taking the correct precautions.
But this is a question that I feel is too intrusive at this point in our relationship, and so I let that look of love dissipate into the warm and sweet-smelling Parisian air. Annie and Barney, this couple that is still a couple, the first mixed dead-undead couple I have ever seen, are pointing the way forward to a future not of violent conflict, but of love and understanding, one born out of humanity’s capacity to protect its braindead brethren. I shall be returning with a full AHRB grant to find out more about Barney’s progress with Annie in the future, once my findings, together with the short films attached, have been presented to the board. In the meantime, I wish them both the best of luck.
Find more videos like this on The Sentinel
NEWS UPDATE
Message received 26 August: Annie reports Barney seemingly doing better, but is broke. If you are in Paris, please do look them up and buy this brave couple a drink to show your support.
Guide to Videos
Toilet
First unexpected footage of Barney taking Annie out in the Bois de Boulogne.
http://thesentinel.ning.com/video/video/show?id=2213723%3AVideo%3A1302
Corridor
Annie quickly responded positively to my interest in Barney and her relationship with him. She invited me to her home; this is how typically she keeps Barney occupied during the day.
http://thesentinel.ning.com/video/video/show?id=2213723%3AVideo%3A1304
Feeding 1
Annie explains how Barney seems to survive on cow liver.
http://thesentinel.ning.com/video/video/show?id=2213723%3AVideo%3A1306
Feeding 2
However, Annie, worried for Barney’s health, insists upon feeding him vitamins as well. She does not know what effect this has on his health.
http://thesentinel.ning.com/video/video/show?id=2213723%3AVideo%3A1310
Street
Annie takes Barney for a walk. Annie is always careful to observe that there are not too many passers by when she takes him out.
http://thesentinel.ning.com/video/video/show?id=2213723%3AVideo%3A1312
Dentist 1
Alex, a Parisian dentist who claims to have treated several zombies before, gives Barney an injection.
http://thesentinel.ning.com/video/video/show?id=2213723%3AVideo%3A1316
Dentist 2
Alex removes one of Barney’s few remaining teeth and uncharitably recommends termination of the relationship.
http://thesentinel.ning.com/video/video/show?id=2213723:Video:1318
Bastille
Annie walks Barney home, determined that their relationship will continue long and strong.
http://thesentinel.ning.com/video/video/show?id=2213723:Video:1322
Lost footage
Barney enjoying a dance to the music of the street performers near the Trocadéro, opposite the Eiffel Tower.
Seeming corrupted file
Annie giving Barney a shower.
2 Comments
-
Comment by Janet on 27 August 2008 at 8:33pm -
What a truly fascinating story, and so well told and captured on film. So many thoughts that my head is buzzing. Makes me feel a bit bad about playing my recent zombie bedroom games with B, especially knowing that there is a couple out there who may really be trying to hold something together through zombie infection. And boy sounds like that would need a huge amount of restraint and protection to do. Can zomies actually have sex and do their sexual parts still function? I'd love to know, but sounds like you haven't been able to go near that topic.
I wish you well with your study and also really feeling for Annie and Barney and so hope they are able to make something of their terrible situation.
-
Comment by Lucinda on 28 August 2008 at 12:32pm -
What makes this development most wonderful is that because zombies are brain-dead they possess no cunning whatsoever – so are unable to think up ways to escape! (I have known non-infected men to behave like this, too).
As for sex, Janet, the answer seems to be yes. As demonstrated in this film -- or, perhaps, documentary?
I now have a vision of single men and woman paying for/buying zombies for their own pleasure. It may solve the issue of over-crowding in graveyards...
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