Category: Monday Mayhem

Back in June last year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued a statement denying knowledge of any virus that may reanimate dead tissue. O-kay. Further, they denied knowledge of any virus that would cause zombie-like symptoms. Right. This is my Monday Mayhem post and—I’m sorry, I have to keep from laughing. Give me a second. Ahem…

In an email to Huffington Post, David Daigle, the American health agency representative wrote: “CDC does not know of a virus or condition that would reanimate the dead (or one that would present zombie-like symptoms).”

Did you catch that? They’re saying they don’t know of a virus or condition that could reanimate dead tissue. They didn’t say it wasn’t possible. Seriously, what goes on behind those doors of the CDC?

You know, another fellow also believed in the reanimation of the dead. He was an obsessed scientist with the idea he could create life. He had an assistant who would provide him with the raw materials. He’d harvest the dead parts, sew them together and call the result human. But nothing could be further from the truth.

I’m talking of course of Dr. Victor Frankenstein and his inept assistant Igor. His ideas were commendable. Take the dead and breathe life back into them. Nothing short of a miracle, really. The results, however, told of a different story. A story of a scientist gone mad who wanted more than anything than to play God. His creature became one of the first known zombies in classical literature.

What makes Frankenstein’s story unique, or rather the lesson we can learn from the monster tale is “no good deed goes unpunished.” (I put it in quotes because it’s a famous saying. Didn’t know what else to do with it). In his zeal to create life out of nothingness, the good doctor didn’t stop to ask if he should. Thus, he created a walking corpse with barely enough intelligence to scour a frying pan.

The most horrific events to have happen to humanity have always been because of good intentions.

Getting back to what the CDC didn’t say. They didn’t say dead tissue reanimation isn’t possible. This leads one to conclude, albeit speculation based on evidentiary inference, that the CDC is studying dead matter reanimation. Yeah, this is the stuff that keeps me up at night.

What if it were true? What if we had the power to eradicate death? Then what?

Imagine a world where no one died. There would be no need for life insurance. Funeral homes would go out of business. All that cemetery land could go to house the living instead. We’d have more money for the economy, since mandatory retirement would disappear. We’d have less social programs. Terminal illnesses would be a thing of the past. And there would be no need for half-price Tuesdays for seniors.

Ah, can you hear the wheels of good intention churn?

If no one dies, how are we to feed everyone? When the cemetery land vanishes, where is everyone going to live? Will there be enough jobs to go around? And the big question: If we eliminate death does this mean we can eliminate aging? Because if we haven’t eliminated aging—we’ve got a major problem.

After about a hundred years, guaranteed we’ll have a real zombie apocalypse on our hands.

Comedic genius George Carlin once said:

“You know what I think they ought to do with those Miss America contests? I think they ought to keep making the losers come back until they win. I’ll tell you, that would get a little spooky after about thirty five years or so, huh?”

What do you think? Are we on the road to creating a Frankenstein monster? Should the CDC open its research facilities to third party monitoring?