MEMORY

It’s midnight and there’s seemingly not a sound from the pavement (or so Elaine Paige would have us believe). The moon may not have lost her memory, but the undead certainly have. It is extremely important to remember that once a person becomes a zombie they will retain no knowledge of their previous life as a human. This means that they will not remember who they were, they will not remember who you are, and they will not remember how to use doors, guns, ladders, the TV remote, a Rubik’s cube or be able to play Sudoku. You will not be able to appeal to their better nature or their human side because they will not have one. They will have forgotten it. They will have no memory. But (and it’s a big but) BUT (sorry, there we go. That’s a big but – the other but was just a regular sized but – maybe I should make my point more clearly) BUT (now that’s a big but – and we like big buts, I cannot lie…) even though a zombie may not retain its human memories, it may have subliminal memories of certain aspects of its human existence. What do we mean by that? I shall explain…

The undead may be drawn to buildings or places that they visited on a regular basis – for example, shopping centres, places of work, pubs, and Taiwanese massage parlours. They won’t know why they feel the need to go there, but through their subliminal thoughts they will be drawn to those places. This is also more likely if the place was known for drawing large crowds of people. The zombie’s animal instinct will be telling it to go there as it knows there will be people to chomp on.

The undead may also show the tendency to repeat actions that they carried out repetitively whilst alive. If a zombie was a petrol pump attendant it may stand and remove and replace the pump from the stand repeatedly if it has nothing else to do. Again, it wouldn’t know why it was doing it and it would soon stop if potential victims came along. The brain may retain these actions purely because they were carried out so often.

This finally leads us to the most disturbing thought – that maybe, just maybe, a zombie will recognise a loved one. Surely if they remember the way to the mall or how to use a petrol pump they will remember the person they’ve been married to for twenty years and they may go to a place they know that person would be?

Remember that although they’ll go to the mall, they won’t know why. They operate the petrol pump, but they don’t know why. So, they may recognise your face, but they won’t know why. All they will know is that their subliminal memory has led them to you and they will bite you. So much for twenty years of happy marriage.