After the End Times

You really can’t go home again. Sometimes, that’s a good thing. Sometimes, when you try, you find out that home isn’t there anymore…but that it wasn’t only in your head before. Home actually existed. Home wasn’t just a dream. Sometimes, that’s the best thing of all.

See, when the zombies came, it was an accident. Researchers in two totally unconnected facilities were working on two totally unrelated projects that involved genetically engineering “helper viruses”—new diseases that were supposed to make life better for the whole damn world. One of them was based on a really fucking nasty hemorrhagic fever called Marburg, and was designed to cure cancer. The other was based on a strain of the common cold, and was supposed to get rid of colds forever. Enter Marburg Amberlee and the Kellis Flu, two beautiful pieces of viral engineering that did exactly what they were supposed to do. No more cancer, no more colds, just happy people all over the world celebrating the dawn of a new age. Only it turns out the viruses were just like the people who made them in at least one sense, because when they met, through the natural chain of transmission and infection, it was basically love at first sight. First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes the hybrid viral strain known as “Kellis-Amberlee.” It swept the planet before anyone knew what was happening.

When does telling the truth become an act of terrorism? at what point does a lie become an act of mercy? Is it cruel to tell a parent their child will die, even if it’s true? Is it kind to tell an accident victim they’re going to recover, even though all evidence says they won’t? Where’s the line dividing honesty from harm, deceit from decency, and misinformation from malice? I don’t know. All the clever wordplay in the world won’t somehow grant me that knowledge. I’m sorry. I wish it would. This is what i do know: A lie, however well-intended, can’t prepare you for reality or change the world. The accident victim will die whether they’re promised recovery or not, but the parent told that their child is dying may have time to prepare, and may be able to treasure those final days together even more. To tell the truth is to provide armament against a world too full of cruelties to be defeated with simple falsehoods. If these truths mean the world is less comforting than it might have been, it seems like a pretty small price to pay. It seems to me we owe the world —- more, we owe ourselves—- the exchange of comfort for the chance that maybe the truth can do what people always say it can. The truth may, given the opportunity, set us free.

Oh dear, that doesn’t sound pleasant. Well now I know who to blame should any of the Old Ones start wandering in from the bay.