User:JN
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AboutAnd the living are made of cardboard. Nashe, a scientist fixated on substance, found a way to worship the flesh in its infinitesimal complexity – though he would spit that degrading and blasphemous word from his tongue. A skein of nervous tissue is the chiasma of all that we once set apart – thought and feeling, body and mind, the great dualities commingled and united. The outside enters and becomes the inside, the abstractions of meaning coalesce into thought and action. And it cleaves. Nashe muttered: "I have five staples in my skull, and they are part of me. Why not this book, whose text I have taken to heart? Why not this sleeping man, here? "We are all one flesh". Are we? Do we want to be? Were I to slip this scalpel between his ribs, I would not feel his pain. One can take the hand of a man doubled over in torment, and feel nothing. Where do we begin and end? The mystery of stimulus proscribes our limits. And I want to be separate from him, to drink his intricate cacophonies and harmonies like a fine wine... An eye cannot see itself..." So Nashe didn't stab him, though he was scientifically and aesthetically inclined. The man woke up, repelling Nashe's earnest, babbling conversation – the state of Dulston, the last thing you read, how you got those bloodstains, zombie linguistics, our creeping isolation. “Tell me where I find a flak jacket or shut up! I just want to live another day. I'm out.” “Why?” wondered Nashe. “What does your life offer you, or any of us? The hordes haven't reduced you like this. Despite their putrefaction, they give us more than you do.” Seeing the man in the street, Nashe threw down his old copy of Blake's prophecies: “Here. There's a map to a well-stocked armoury inside. I forget which page.” A useless gesture. Grown a little unhinged but retaining his acuity, Nashe now has a near-compulsive need to listen and learn. Perhaps this is why he revives the dead – one of them might, perhaps, restore a little spark to life. It's certainly why he has joined the Philosophe Knights. After all, they are humanists. But a human is not made of cardboard. Reflections on Barhah and Drunkenness: By Birra Moretti, in a Rare Moment of Relative SobrietyBarhah is much like stupefying oneself with a bottle of fine brandy, and I should know. You take a snifter, and then another: you're in a close circle of friends, who are roaring with laughter at some absurd story of yours. The warmth of the brandy and your company fills you with spirit, and that fulsome little débutante in the corner seems to have a deliciously improper expression in the corner of her eye. You pour a few glasses more, and find yourself dancing a jig in formation, wondering where your trousers went. Deciding to polish off the bottle, you notice that that the dignified gentleman in the corner is giving you a disapproving glance, upon which you sink your teeth into his polished skull and are forcibly restrained by several of your own footmen. We have all had this experience. In my capacity as a zombie linguist, I have never once hear the word uttered by an isolated zombie. This is telling. Barhah is shared and collective, much like one's drunken anecdote. It brings zombies together, filling us with that sense of community. It is innocent, juvenile, and animalistic, much like one's trouserless dancing. It should be noted that the zombies who speak of Barhah are often the most humorous and absurd of their ilk. Indeed, they act whimsically against the dictates of fatigue and functionality, only wishing to share their joy. And, much like one's attempted cranial mastication, it has it's bloodier, more violent aspect. It is a Bacchanalian revel. Barhah is childlike, much like the 'threatening' undead that constitute a goodly portion of our fair city. They have no cares: they don't have to wake up at ungodly hours to check the stock ticker, they don't have to manage their unruly serving girls, and they don't have to write letters of complaint to the local rag about public footpaths incurring upon private land. They don't even have to breathe, eat, or worry about mortality. A state to be envied, indeed; but more than this, a state to be shared. The proponents of Barhah want only to share their bliss with the unfortunate living. When every building in Malton is ruined and every cruel syringe has been emptied, the grim survivors will know what Adam and Eve knew in earthly paradise: innocence and bliss. Yes, Barhah has its darker side, much as a child or drunkard is capable of terrible cruelty. Though we drag our claws with black abandon through the flesh of the living, think of the end, not the means. The end is peace, perfect peace. We are the evangelists of this eternal peace, which nostalgia can only simulate, and none shall forego our baptism of fire. Come, we welcome you with arms outstretched! The débutante? I apologise, she was entirely irrelevant. But she was also absolutely delectable. Educative ActivitiesPending (To do - fix column widths, add table, change picture, kill somebody and get reported for it) 
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