The Zombie and his Existential Crisis. Chantal Spies
composed herself and cleared her throat, “A pleasure to meet you good Sir.” She tried to shake his hand. Her palm grasped nothing but cold air. “The pleasure is entirely mine mademoiselle.” Gaston delicately kissed the Princess’s hand. She politely pretended to feel it and curtseyed.
“Excuse me for interrupting this warm introduction, but I nearly died of a heart attack and you three are trespassing on private, royal, property.” Nurse Melinda angrily interrupted. “Oh, I do apologize for scaring you madam. Please believe me when I say it was not our intention to frighten you.” Frederick always remembered his manners. “I find that hard to believe Frederick. You certainly loved playing silly pranks when you alive. I doubt much has changed.” Melinda held a grudge evidently.
“Wait? What? You also knew me while I was alive?” Frederick could barely control his excitement. “Well of course. I am Princess Minna’s nurse after all. I know everything about her.” She said with a grin and a wink. “Well, this is great! Now I have two people who knew me while I was still alive.” Frederick said with a big smile on his face. “And me!” Lord George chirped in.
“Ladies, can you please tell us what happened to us? How did we die?” Frederick asked a little too eagerly. “Unfortunately, we don’t know much dearies. All we know is that your lifeless bodies were found next to the riverbed. No one could tell how it happened. There were no injuries or marks on either of your bodies.” Melinda answered in a matter-of-fact kinda way. “The healers’ best guess was that you were poisoned. But there’s a rumor amongst the townsfolk that you were killed with dark magic.” Princess Minna added. Lord George felt a chill going down his spine even though he was cold-blooded, “Princess, are you implying that we were murdered?”
“Murdered? So, is that why we didn’t move over to the other side? Do we need to track down the murderer and avenge our deaths?” Frederick wasn’t prepared for any of this. “Well actually--”, Melinda started to talk, but he was already too emotional to let her finish, “I don’t want to hunt down murderers. Or punish people.” She tried again, “No, that is not—”, this time a whiney Lord George butted in, “Neither do I. What a mood killer.” The nurse was too frustrated to let them continue with their pity party, “If you both would just let me speak! Poisoning is one of the theories. However, that does not mean that someone poisoned you. You were found right next to the Woody Nightshade. Maybe you mistook them for tomatoes and ate some. They are deadly you know.” Frederick and George pondered on that a little. “Makes sense. I do like little tomatoes.” Lord George was buying it. “Death by tiny tomatoes does sound a lot better than murder.” The prince also desperately wanted the tomato theory to be true.
“But wait a minute.” Minna interjected, “If they died simply by eating Woody Nightshade, why didn’t they move over to the other side? People only stay behind when they have unfinished business. So, what could it be?” She was secretly hoping that the reason Frederick didn’t move over to the other side, was her. Maybe their love was stronger than death. “Princess, you’re right.” Frederick said, “But how am I going to find out what my unfinished business is after life if I didn’t even know what it was during life?” Melinda cleared her throat, “No need to panic. The answer is simple: both of you never discovered your essence.”
“Our what?” Lord George asked, confused. “Your essence.” She repeated. “Yes, but what is this essence thingie? And where do we find it?” he persisted. The sudden change in subject caught Gaston’s interest. Now that things were getting less soppy and more philosophical, he was all ears.
“Allow me to give you a glimpse of the past.” Gaston said, as a vision of ancient Greece appeared behind him. “Back in the day, the philosophers Aristotle and Plato believed that we all had an essence. It’s a certain set of core properties that are necessary for a thing to be what it is intended to be. If you do not find this essence, well then, you fail.” Gaston explained.
“Then I am failing miserably! I don’t know what my essence is. I did not know what I was born to do while I was alive and now that I’m dead, I’m still clueless.” Frederick said as his shoulders dropped. “Well then we cannot waste any more time my prince! We have to go find your essence. I, for one, will definitely help.” George eagerly started looking underneath all the rocks around him. “No Lord George. I think Gaston means that one’s essence comes from within.” Frederick sighed. “Well that can’t be hard then. I will climb through your ear again and look for your essence.”
“No, Lord George, it is…” Frederick started to explain but was interrupted by a gasping Lord George, “Unless… the worms ate your essence!”
“Your essence is not something you can touch or that can be eaten by worms. It is something unseen but yet to be discovered.” said the ghost. “You just have to take a little journey and find yourself.” Melinda added rather mysteriously. They looked at each other in utter dismay, “A trip?” Frederick asked, with absolutely no idea what he was getting himself into.
Chapter 6: What is my purpose?
Prince Frederick and Lord George were walking along a beautiful forest path. Birds were chirping, bees humming, frogs croaked. George took a deep breath and smiled, “Ah! Don’t you just love the smell of nature?” But Frederick was less than impressed with the scenery. “I don’t have a sense of smell. I’m dead, remember?”
“Whoopsie.” The roach couldn’t help but be a little embarrassed. He babbled on to fill the awkward silence, “Have you ever been on a journey of self-discovery before?”
“Well I don’t remember much of my life before so I can’t really say.” the Zombie replied. “This is as new to you as it is to me. Finding yourself; I didn’t even know I was lost to be honest.”
“Well apparently we’re all lost until we find our essence. Our essence will reveal our purpose and our purpose reveals our reason for existence.” Lord George parroted ghost Gaston’s words back to Frederick.
“But I still don’t understand how a physical journey will help us with our spiritual journey.” Lord George thought out aloud. “According to Melinda, we need external challenges to reveal our internal character. Once we have overcome all of the challenges on our journey, the Oracle we will meet will tell us our true essence.” Frederick explained.
“But what’s the point of finding our essence?” George still wasn’t getting it.
“According to the Oracles, an entity cannot move over to the other side unless it is whole and complete. Without our essence, part of us remains missing.”
“You do realize that moving over would mean you won’t see Princess Minna again?”
Frederick remained silent for a few moments, “Yes I know. I thought about whether I really wanted to move over or not, but my staying wouldn’t be fair to her.”
Lord George looked at Frederick sympathetically. He knew how much Minna meant to his zombie friend. “Besides,” Frederick added, “… one day she will move over to the other side and we will see each other again. In another world or in another life perhaps.”
Meanwhile, back at the palace, the Princess was trying to play her harp, but her thoughts wouldn’t let her get a single note right.
Where were they now? Have they encountered their first challenge? Did they succeed?
Frederick promised he would ask the Oracle for permission to say goodbye to her before moving over to the other side. Sometimes none of this made any sense. What was her essence, her purpose? She always thought it was to make her father happy and to one day rule the land, but what if he died? What if the land fell into someone else’s hands? What would be her purpose then? Who decides your purpose anyway? God? The Universe? With all these questions buzzing around in her head, Minna felt dizzy and very tired. In no time at all she was fast asleep on the garden bench.
Far