I’ve thought about the end of the world. I’ve thought about the sun exploding and big clouds of blood orange smoke replacing the sky; I’ve thought about landslides and floods; I’ve thought about how the rain might smell and I’ve thought how the air might feel. But how does one live after the end of the world? And I don’t mean existence in the physical sense. I imagine any post-apocalyptic being, a zombie of sorts, has evolved lungs that can ventilate clouds of dust and eyes that can penetrate through an endless darkness. I mean more so in relation to emotion. How do these undead beings continue living, feeling…do they even still feel – love, longing, desire?
Well, it turns it they do – according to Anne De Marcken’s latest novel It Lasts Forever and Then It’s Over published by Fitzcarraldo. Beautifully haunting and deeply visceral, the story follows the life of what we understand to be a zombie who, despite her undead form, is voraciously alive in the afterlife. In noting every strange and unfamiliar detail of her newfangled reality, she remembers, with an unbearable longing, the places she knew before. The places where she loved, was loved and felt alive. She remembers, in a detail acquired only by losing such things, the way her lover’s eyes fell upon her, the way the sunset looked, the ways feelings would rush inside her, the way the breeze felt, the way the ocean sounded as it inhaled and exhaled, the warmth of the sun and the shadows it would paint, the feeling of sleeping, the feeling of waking, the feeling of loving.
Yet, despite our narrator’s non-human form (and her ability to continue living even after losing multiple limbs), her words feel deeply profound – as if in losing her humanity, she is able to understand it in an entirely new way. Each sentence made my heart throb more intensely than the last, my breath stuck in my chest (as the dead talking crow was in hers) and unable to escape, in a state of awe at bearing witness to this creature explore love, loss and longing in their new and strange form.
Perhaps its her ability to explain her newfound condition so profoundly – that condition of being both alive and dead – is what struck me most. Perhaps because I found it strangely relatable, that feeling.
“I feel as if I’m holding onto something, to the edge of something or the end of something. Every moment is the moment I am not going to be able to hang on. About to slide off over and over. It takes all my willpower to not let go and at some point I will decide it doesn’t matter so I do let go. But I was not actually holding on to anything so the feeling does not go away. Then I have the feeling of needing to let go and the feeling of having let go at the same time. This – this – is what it feels like to be undead. And this is what it feels like to be alive.”
Between paragraphs, I found myself needing to momentarily take a breath. How was I experiencing such a visceral reaction to this undead being? I felt so related to her somehow. Perhaps it’s some sort of commentary, I thought, on the contemporary condition of the human existence. I looked around the carriage of the Northern Line as I read and saw these humans around me who appeared zombie-like, commuters who stuck in the grind of city life to the point, their humanity drained of all colour. They were both alive and dead. I held the book in my hands for a while.
What if we were to recognise our profundity, as our undead narrative does? We are after all, rather spectacular beings. The fact that we are moving, thinking, feeling, all of these things inside of us and around us. That we can see the sky change from blue to red, that we breathe life from green that grows from the ground, that our eyes can grow to the size of the moon at the sight of someone we love. What if we marvelled at the absurdity and wonder that is life, more often? In recognising our humanity collectively, how might we become more tender toward each other and the world around us?
I don’t know. I hold onto these train thoughts that swirl around my head, and think about them more when I’m in bed staring out to the sky, book still in hand. I think about everyone I want to give this book to. But I won’t give it to them…not yet. I need to keep it close, remind myself that I am alive in this moment and feeling everything.