Zombie Apocalypse

Today is the day after the end of the world as we know it. But I’m getting ahead of myself. 

This all got started some 25 years ago. Little Damian was a covenant child, where his parents attended Oceanside URC.

Little Damian was a precocious child who could recite the Three Forms of Unity in Latin from memory by the age of 4. Pastor Clark had high hopes that someday Damian would become a great historical theologian.

But under the surface, all was not well. You see, little Damian’s mom and dad were secret Santaists. That’s right. Every Christmas Eve, when Damian was but a boy, they made the annual oblation of milk and cookies.

So sweet, trusting little Damian was raised to believe in Father Christmas. But being a precocious boy, the logistical challenges of how a handful of elves in the North Pole could manufacture the requisite number of toys and candy canes–not to mention how a single sleigh, drawn by flying reindeer, could visit every house on earth in just one evening, began to overtax his childish credulity.

At first he resisted with all his tender might. But he couldn’t help suspecting the unspeakable truth: his parents were fibbing! And once the disillusionment set in, it began to spread like gangrene.

If they lied to him about Santa, why weren’t they lying about Jesus and the resurrection? Why weren’t they? After all, he had never seen Jesus. Damian only had a book, a story, and a storyteller. Who could blame him for doubting? If Santa doesn’t really fly through the air then perhaps Jesus didn’t ascend? If Santa didn’t really eat the cookies, then perhaps communion is just a thing we do; it doesn’t really mean anything? In its own way, the Santa myth told him that this really is a closed universe, that there isn’t really any such thing as transcendent reality. Losing faith in his parents was a potent recipe for rampant, virulent misanthropy.

However, except for a rash of missing neighborhood cats, everything seemed to be outwardly normal. Damian was a straight-A student in grade school and middle school. Graduated valedictorian in high school. Full scholarship to MIT, where he earned a doctorate in bioengineering–followed by a stint at the CDC.

It was there that he developed a retrovirus which mutated human beings into man-eating zombies–culminating in the zombie apocalypse. All because his parents were secret Santaists.

I’m tempted to say, let that be a warning to you–except for the fact that there’s no one left on earth to warn. Sigh!