The Holiday Experience

T'was the Holiday Season
When huge sales abound
And people drive in
From miles around.
Our Christmas displays
Were assembled with care
To please hapless shoppers
That soon would be there.
The zombies all groaned
And grumbled with glee
At the start of our
Christmas killing spree.
At front end the bodies
Were piled fifty high,
And soon the brain-eating
Time would be nigh.
More humans came in
For dinner and gifts
Unaware that their brains
From their skulls would be ripped 
In time we made sure
The store doors were closed
And followed the smell of corpses
That tickled our nose.
We all chowed down
With voracious appetites
And should be satisfied
Till our New Years Eve bites.

Spat

No Tax Sale
Tonight only.
She called in advance
For a costly item
Though we do NOT
Give prices over the phone.

She did not read the sign properly
When she was in earlier.
The old man came in later
To fulfill her request,
Unaware of her mistake.
I put aside the size she requested.
It was twenty dollars more
Than she thought because
She saw the price
For the next size down.

He called his wife
When the misunderstanding
Sank in.
Customer service called me
When the bickering became
A source of alarm.
I smoothed things over
In the husband's favour,
Though he fumed still.

"Women," he growled.
"Last time I ever
Pick anything up for her.
I tell you, son,
Women are complicated,
And rarely simplify.
If my wife dies before me
I'll never marry again!"
He declared in his frustration.

"Don't you ever get married,"
He said with a hand on my shoulder,
"Or your woman will cause you trouble.
Stay a bachelor, son."
With a final disgruntled sigh
He shambled off,
And I shuffled away,
Laughing.

I am not certain when
The sex change happened--
For how could he mistake
Me for a man? 

Another Day In The Unlife

Most days pass without complaint:
Others torment me
And require more restraint.
Sometimes I idly hum
"I Am The Walrus"
Even as I pass through
The gates of Tartarus
To slave away for the Egg-men.

Someone insults me
By insinuating I don't know my job.
She calls me rude
And storms away,
Leaving me to bear the brunt
Of her perceived redress
Though the manager
Considers my years of service
Over her tempest.
My anger subsides in a while,
And I remember my true purpose.

I talk with a representative of our Collective--
His waters swifter than
His shallow pool might imply.
We talk of spirits and Spirits.
We talk of our disappointments
In this factory of drones,
And injustices wrought upon us all
By the Corporate machine.

They sadden our over-seers
With their weight and their demands.
And make our lives an un-living Hell.
I wish things could be better.

Our talk remind me
Of things of which
I had lost sight.
I remember my true purpose
And continue slaving
Through the night
For the promise of day.

Lapsing

I've heard the only cure
Is leaving for good:
Putting this drone-factory behind you
And never looking back.
It's nice for those who can,
But I shall not be free
Due to this town's enormous lack
Of jobs that pay well
And are still flexible enough for me to be me.

Not that I am free--
By that I mean free to be me
Instead of a mere entity
Inside a tired body.
Beyond those doors I'm a corporate slave,
With my mind in the wasteland
And one foot in the grave
Among the vast legions of retail Undead.
While company directives claw inside my head.

Trick or treat;
Smell my feet,
Give me tasty brains to eat.
There's none too big
And none too small,
'Cause if there's brains I'll eat them all.

They peruse the costumes
And fake shrunken heads
Unaware that the help
Is soul-less Undead.
We give them direction
And take great pains
Though their questions are sometimes stupid.
They won't miss their brains.

We feel vague joy
Though we are somewhat bereft.
A friend chose the eternal cure
And hurriedly left.
Hurry: swiftly fly away
And be a human while there is still time to play.

The rest of us remain here.
If there is time
We will barbecue brains
And have a beer.
And then go back to work.

Training the New Hires

We are the Company.
You will be assimilated.
Resistance is futile.

This is the graveyard
Of our individuality--
We die in our uniforms
That imply teamwork
And policies of collective thought.

And yet we move and live still.
Sort of.

We are the Collective
And this is our agreement.
It protects us from the Corporation--
Or it protects them from us.
We do not really know.


It is a book of legal jargon
That tells us their rights.


You will dress how you are told.
You will speak as you are trained to.
You exist to serve the humans
Because they are dollar signs
That bring hours to the Collective.


Do not think about the fact that you were one once.
You have been assimilated into the Corporate retail machine.


Only those that dedicate 
Their natural lives
To the Company's view of perfection
Get their individuality back...
Or those that resist.


To resist is to die in the eyes of the Company--
Though we are dead already.


We are zombie machines
Striving for perfection
With super-human physical strength
And ignorance of pain.
Shuffling along with warm smiles on our lips.


But the humans cannot see
The emptiness in our eyes.


So much we did not know
When they offered us the apple.
We bit its sweet flesh
And lost our sense of self,
Though at the time we were unaware.


As you are unaware,
Though we must lie and say nothing can be better.


We will train you to help the humans.
We will show you how to serve the Collective.
It is our job to serve the Company.
Insufficiency will not do.
We must be perfect.


To be perfect
You must be brain-dead living.
 

Frustration (Suppression)

Work, work, work, work--
Stocking till I go berserk.
I groan and muscles strain
As I work through occasional pain.

I shuffle to the beat
Of my throbbing feet
And sigh as I meet the next task
Sometimes there is so much they ask.

The shoppers drive me insane
When they fail to use their brains.
It is a nuisance when I meet them:
Their wasted brains should instead be eaten.

But I "live" in a form of dread
That, when I open up their heads
I will wonder what the world is coming to
When chips have more nutritional value.

I want to tell them to use their minds:
The answers they seek are on the ****ing signs. 

Requiem for the Retail Zombie

The art of "earning a living"
Comes from someone taking,
Someone giving.

To eat and pay the bills
Is to SURVIVE:
Being able to medicate ills
Is not the same as being ALIVE.

When I am here I merely exist:
A joyless state continues to persist.
How is there hope at the end of shift-long strife
When you always exit to find you've missed life?

I am not living, nor am I dead;
Missed opportunities resound in my head
As I labour, huffing, shuffling--
My hours of tenure count for nothing.

When you arrive, hopeful, on hiring day
There's one thing they never tell;
To have other priorities is to sign Life away
And remain in evening-shift Hell.

This is what they have done to me
For refusing to be their fool:
For I can exist as a retail zombie,
Or live and go to school.