A Take On The Living Dead

I am fascinated by the human body. I find it a marvelous and miraculous construct - probably the most amazing specimen on earth. And being a man of science, I am compelled to learn as much as I can about what the human body and mind can do (and what it can withstand). And tonight, I had the good fortune of discovering a new physical/mental state with my own eyes.

Tonight, my friend got very drunk, very quickly. Toward the end of his drinking, he had a substantial energy drink. Between the two, he was full of life. He was bombastic and comedic. He wanted to move around and dance. Despite this mental and physical energy, he could not do too much without because his body had been crippled by the alcohol. He literally could not stand up.

Generally, when he consumes alcohol, it knocks him out. He gets so tired that within a few hours, he will fall asleep anywhere. In fact, before he had the energy drink, he was nodding off. It was amazing to see it bring him back to life.

Later on, though, it took a turn for the strange. My friend was very awake, but completely exhausted. He was starting to sober up (which he tried to alleviate), but his body was still completely crippled and aching to sleep, but his mind simply wouldn't allow it.

He was a zombie. And that was an interesting thought to me. A zombie is a human being whose body is semi-functional and whose natural mind is less functional than that, but is not allowed to sleep by some outside force. They are compelled to move and act, not allowed to do the one thing that would cure them of their ailments, but not really able to do anything useful, only to cause havoc and destruction.

I've seen voodoo zombies (living humans with a spell cast on them), necronomic zombies (corpses brought back to life), and viral zombies (a virus which kind of takes over/kills and reanimates them), and they all seem to work in a similar way.

I find it interesting that alcohol and energy drinks can turn somebody into a "zombie", but it is in fact quite similar to how legitimate zombies function.