Post-Apocalyptic Fiction Gets It Right

There’s a man out there by the name of Max Brooks who just so happens to be one of the world’s leading scholars on zombies. He also happens to be the son of Mel Brooks, which increases his academic credentials tenfold in the sphere of things that probably aren’t real.

As it happens, Brooks (Max, not Mel) is also an author of books, two of which are of particular interest here. The first, The Zombie Survival Guide, is an unimpeachable source of information for anyone even remotely concerned about the dangers posed to him or her by hordes of the undead (and not, as its name might suggest, a guide for survival or fine living as a zombie). The second, World War Z, is a hypothetical (or prophetic?) account of humanity’s struggle against a zombie holocaust, as well as a clarion call for the global community that is so horribly unprepared to deal with zombies.

And in the course of presenting this thesis, Brooks argues that one reason why we are so inadequately situated to combat the undead is due to the lack of useful skills so many of us have. There are plenty of lawyers, customer service specialists, and taxidermists, but how many of us know how to wire a generator, install functional plumbing, or do so many of the other things that would be required of us in the process of fortifying and rebuilding our nation? The answer is that we would find ourselves in a complete reversal of social strata, in which the blue collar class, who are relatively less equipped to send out for and pay the necessary specialist (aside from the fact that said specialist is often enough blue collar himself), would become the instructors and coordinators of labor, while the white collar class, now completely useless, would do the manual work.

The evidence for such an argument is readily available in the states, but it is equally present here in Morocco. I have been amazed to see people taking handymanship to whole new levels. My host father, who is a landscaper, can frequently be found repairing the radio in the living room. My host brother, who has a degree in hair dressing, will often enough have to go up on the roof and repair the motor for the satellite dish. And everyone I’ve met knows how to mix concrete and construct walls. This is as much because of a similar lack of disposable income for calling upon specialists as it is due to a general lack of said specialists (most likely due to a lack of anyone hiring them). At least someone’s ready to deal with the zombies.

There’s also a movie called Waterworld, which just happens to be the best testimonial to the theoretical difficulty of living in a world devoid of dry land that also stars Kevin Costner. According to the film, one of the side effects of such a life would be an exponential increase in the value of otherwise very mundane objects, such as paper and interesting dialogue. A similar phenomenon seems to take place in the Peace Corps. Now that I’m living on my own here in Morocco, I could kill someone for their Tupperware and a handful of ziplock bags, and I’ve read the entirety of my predecessor’s alumni magazine, merely for lack of other English-language text, despite the fact that I had never before heard the name of Beloit College, nor do I now care about it in the slightest bit. And I’ve basically turned into your senile grandmother that saves every little bit of string or paperclip she finds, and sometimes get as excited about the ribbon on the outside of a package as I am for what’s in it.

But the scariest thing of all is to think that my life has not taken on any semblance to Waterworld. Unless it was gills behind my ears. That would be really cool.