You have won — a free all inclusive escape to: Zombieland

You have won — a free all inclusive escape to: Zombieland

downtown — is supposed to be a word that brings up excitement.

an escape from the mundane, words falter and fail me here.

an escape from the disturbia of suburbia.

Downtown Portland is a complete zombie-land. Sometimes I go to dance classes that take me into what is called “NW” Portland and walking through NW Portland is like walking through a live movie of the night of the living dead. As far as categories of Portlanders go, I am one of the brady bunch — someone who is young and able-bodied, who came from parents who worked just hard enough to push me into some sort of housed or semi-housed living situation and has stayed off of substances enough to know how to put one foot in front of the other. It seems to be nothing less than an act of God that I am able to keep a clear head of sorts about me.

I get out of my car and walk around downtown Portland, a bit. It’s not exactly intentional that I am walking around the downtown — it’s more an act of necessity, the call of the whole food’s salad bar is calling to me. It’s not quite hunting down a squirrel for lunch in the middle of the arctic circle, but it’s definitely more challenging to walk down the street and into a whole foods than it seems. As I get out of my car I see the scene — I am not sure if I am simply going to the grocery store or if I am walking onto the set of some sort of dystopian horror movie. A girl without shoes on and visible sores on her feet approaches me as I “safely exit my vehicle”. This girl looks to be about the same age as me, maybe a few years younger — I would guess she is in her late twenties or very early thirties. She is skinny, like I am, and has delicate features. She has big intelligent eyes, they are wide blue eyes, and is wearing a ripped shirt. She only has one shoe on. Her hair is similar in color to mine, for all accounts we could be sisters or we could have at least been classmates while in college — and she looks at me with these big, intelligent, and terrified eyes and she says in one swift breathe, “Can you help me?”.

Twelve feet away from her is a boy who looks to be around twenty two years old, who is passed out on the sidewalk. He is covered in dirt, and for all I can tell, is completely unconscious. His hair is matted, and as soon as I see his body laying on the ground I start to formulate a story of where he came from. “He was probably from suburban parents”, I say to myself. “Maybe he had some sort of injury, or there was an extreme heartbreak, and maybe he started taking his mom’s prescription drugs, and now he’s..here”.

I want to help this girl, I want to look at her and say “here, come with me — you are a doll who has been mistreated by the giant hands of some sick troll that we call “the system”, and I have a doll-house for you, with a bathtub where you can wash your feet and hair. Come with me, to the doll-house that you deserve, you will get better”. I wish I owned a dollhouse for her.

She is my age and I want to make her life better, but I feel at a loss. In my brain I am compartmentalizing — I am doing all of the “right and practical, normal, things” — right? I drove myself to ballet class, I did my best in the class, I listened to the cues, I practiced my art. Now I am doing the other practical thing that people say to do during the apocalypse — I am going to feed myself. And in my effort to follow my Virgoan practicality, I have found myself in the middle of zombie-land. What is it that I need to know while in the middle of zombie-land? No one has equipped me for this. I have recently been looking at college courses online to finish my degree and I haven’t found a course online that says “preparation for the zombie apocalypse, how to be in service to your fellow man in crisis”.

Seeing this girl with big intelligent eyes, who is missing shoes, and has been neglected, shakes me up. It viscerally shakes me up. I don’t know what to do — will cash help her? Is she on drugs? The words that she is saying are so sincere, though, and it feels necessary to repeat them here on the internet — she is saying “Help me.”. This girl with the big, intelligent eyes is asking for help, and she is asking all of us, anyone with an ear — “HELP ME”. There is no misconstruing that. As human beings who live and work within a civilization, when we see another one of US who has been neglected in whatever way — we are morally obligated to provide help.

While I was walking through the dystopian horror movie that is downtown Portland, I was hoping that it was a movie set. I was truly hoping that this girl that walked up to me was an extra — that she was some kind of paid extra in a Hollywood B movie. I am hoping that there will be actors dressed up in professional alien costumes who start walking around the whole foods and spoofing us all. Maybe there’s a scene where she runs from one of the people in a professional alien costume. Maybe there’s a scene where this girl with big intelligent eyes transforms into an alien herself, maybe the plot twist is that there has been a food shortage on Proxima 3.14 and the aliens have come to beam the grocery store up into space — maybe they will take this girl with them. Is that the full script of the film?

“Wow, the make-up department did a great job on you” — I want to say to her, I need her to be an extra some dystopian film, just doing her job at 6 PM on a Monday evening. When I first moved to Portland I noticed that the tagline of Portland is “the city that works”. Since it’s Portland, she must be…at work, right now, right?

I want her to be getting paid a salary for her work. “Your director is really putting you to WORK”, I wish I could say. I need to know that she is calling her parents after work and telling them about her exciting role.It cannot be easy work to walk around completely barefoot in the streets of downtown Portland. She is not getting paid for anything though, and her director is god. I have heard that God is one of the worst directors and camera-man to work for, because even when you are giving your most genuine performance, he doesn’t pay shit. Sometimes I want to turn on the TV and just see that God has been fired from Hollywood.

There she is though, she just looks at me with her big intelligent eyes, with no Hollywood director in site, and just says to me “Help Me”.