Breathers Read Online Free PDF Page B

other Breather who might happen to be passing by. And certainly not a fellow zombie with one useless arm and one useless leg.
    I drop back down into the Dumpster and listen to the shouts drift away until I'm alone with the silence and myfeelings of inadequacy. But when you spend most of your existence in your parents’ wine cellar drinking bottle after bottle of wine and watching reruns of
Joanie Loves Chachi
while you gradually decompose, feelings of inadequacy are part of the room and board.
    Problem is, even if I would have tried to help Walter, even if I
could have
helped, it wouldn't have mattered. Presuming I wouldn't have been dismembered along with him, any form of aggression by zombies against humans is considered grounds for immediate destruction. Even if it's in self-defense. And as I've suddenly discovered, I'm more interested in self-preservation than I thought.
    It's times like this that make you question the values of a society that allows this to happen. That permits the random mutilation and dismemberment of someone who used to be a living, breathing person without consequences. I know it's no one's fault that I reanimated, that any of us came back from the dead, but someone should have to be held accountable for what happened to Walter.
    I wait in the Dumpster for the return of Rita, Jerry, and Helen, wondering how long it will be before they come back for me, hoping they show up before the Waste Management truck, thinking about Walter. You hear about things like this happening all the time to other zombies who live in another town or another state or another country. But when it happens to you, to someone you know, it becomes something personal.
    Something that affects you.
    Something that inspires you.
    Something that makes you want to take some action.

'm sitting on the front lawn of my parents’ house next to a homemade sign that says:
    ZOMBIES AGAINST MUTILATION.
    I'm the only non-Breather in the vicinity, so technically it should read ZOMBIE AGAINST MUTILATION, but I thought the message would carry more weight if it was written in the plural.
    The sign is on poster board attached to a four-foot wooden tree stake that's stuck in the lawn. Mom helped me make the sign and attach it to the stake. I don't think she had any idea what I planned to use it for. Just thought it was something cute I wanted to do and she was always eager to help me with projects when I was in school, so she dove right in. Of course, she screamed when I tried to hug her and she nearly vomited after I sneezed and a piece of my brain came out my nose, but it's what passes for quality time around here lately.
    It's a nice afternoon to be protesting. The sun is out, the sky is blue, and the abuse is flowing.
    A car drives past filled with teenagers who yell derogatory comments laced with expletives, like Fucking Decomposing Freak and Abortion-Sucking, Brain-Dead Fuckstick. I justsmile and wave with my right hand as if their words don't bother me, but you can't help but take it personally when someone says you're brain dead.
    So far I've been out here for nearly an hour and have seen about half-a-dozen cars drive down the street. While most of the Breathers ignore me, some of them actually take the time to stop and take pictures with their camera phones or shower me with slurs and zombie epithets and whatever garbage they have handy. Granted, I'm only getting my message out to the people who live on my parents’ street and in their neighborhood, but even zombies who make themselves a public nuisance are jeopardizing their existence. This way, by staying on my parents’ property, I can make a social statement without taking too much of a risk. I don't know if it will change anyone's mind, but considering everything we're up against, you have to start somewhere.
    In addition to getting mutilated and dismembered, zombies are used as crash dummies for impact tests, get farmed for donor organs and spare body parts, and are left out to