A Mystery...

So I ended up getting a valentine after all. It was a day late, but who's complaining? The valentine came in a little red envelope and had a pastel drawing of two kittens, the boy kitten (you could tell it was the boy kitten because it had a blue bow, and the girl kitten had a pink bow and long eyelashes) with his tiny forepaws clutched over his heart, and he was beseeching his sweetie to "Be my Valentine?". It looked like the sort of card you'd get by the bagful when you were in kindergarten or first grade and then, sadly, never get again in your life. And the card was signed...well, that's the mystery. It wasn't signed. It had been pushed through the gap in my locker until just the corner of it was sticking out.

I have three suspects--I mentioned a little while ago that I would be chaperoning a group of newlydead kids around the school? Three of them are boys, and I am pretty certain that the Valentine came from one of them. Which is very flattering at all but I assure you that I was very professional in my chaperoning and not flirtatious at all so I hope none of them got the wrong idea.

Meet the suspects--

Eric
Eric is very quiet and shy but he did tell me that he died because of a long illness. He didn't tell me what the illness was but I get the idea that he was bedridden or hospitalized for a long time; he is very frail and his skin tone is a shade paler than most zombies, even. He has very wide blue eyes that almost look too big for his face, but he doesn't let you look at them very long. We didn't get the chance to talk much but I know he really likes cartoons. I think he said Invader Zim was his favorite.

Travis
Travis is almost the polar opposite of Eric; he's one of the most outgoing zombies I've ever met. He apparently died as a result of a Jackass-style stunt he tried to do involving a dirt bike, a long ramp, and a woodpile. He said that he was impaled on a tree branch during the stunt and died, and then he asked me if I wanted to see the scar. Omz, no! He bla bla bla'd the whole time I spent walking him around--he talks so fast that he nearly sounds trad, and all of his stories involved some extreme activity he'd done--rock climbing in Utah, white water rafting in Colorado, shark hunting off the coast of Florida. His parents are "rich and still love him even though he's dead" and I wasn't sure which fact was more important that I understand.

I guess I'm kind of painting him out to be a blowhard but actually he was kind of funny once he settled down a bit. And although it sounds grisly and sick, he had a whole table of us--trad and zombie alike--laughing at the story of his death. Not many zombies have a sense of humor about that stuff so that at least was refreshing.

Luis
He's the mystery within the mystery, because he shared almost nothing with me. Eric was shy but he'd at least answer a question when you asked it; and unlike Eric, Luis would maintain eye contact an uncomfortably long time. Zombies do that, especially newlydeads who haven't regained much of their functionality, so I don't think he was being intentionally creepy. Plus he has really nice dark eyes and I bet it if he were still alive he'd be really good looking. That sounds really shallow and judgemental--he's still kind of good looking, but if he was alive he'd look even better. You get the idea. But I got almost nothing from Luis at all about his background. About the only thing that he said to me unprompted was "I like...your...bracelets...and your...hair," which was very sweet and nice of him and probably the only remotely flirty thing any of the three said to me the first week I was showing them around. But the Kitten Kard? Doesn't seem like his style, somehow.

So those are our suspects. What do you think? Who slipped the valentine into my locker? Eric? Travis? Luis? Or...someone else?

I'll share more clues as I discover them...

Happy Valentine's Day

Tomorrow is Valentine's Day, so I thought I would wish you all, zombie and trad alike, a happy one. I hope that you have a happy one filled with mushy cards, flowers, and free candy. Especially free candy. Last year some trad kid gave Karen a box of candy, which I guess was really sweet of him but, guess what? Zombies don't eat, brainiac! Karen did eat one, though, before giving me the rest of the box which I very greedily devoured barely sharing any because I can be that way sometimes. I did ask Karen the next day if she wanted another one (I had a few left, and I suspected that they were pretty much all those chewy chocolate covered caramel ones, yuck) but she declined and then did some Jedi mind trick where she told me exactly how many I ate and what order I ate them in. Spoooky! But we miss yoooouuuu, Karen! Where are you? When ya coming home? Anyhow, she didn't have any more of the chocolates and I wondered if giving a zombie a chocolate was like giving a dog a chocolate but that really isn't a good thing to speculate about, omz!

I do not have a special sweetie (sob) but that does not mean my heart is not filled with love. Some of the nastier, meaner zombies (yes, I'm talking to you, Popeye) call us beating hearts as some sort of insult, but I actually think it is kind of a nice thing to be called. They like being called zombies, so go figure.

Anyhow, a certain zombie believes that love is the answer to making dead hearts beat again. I look forward to the day when that happens, for everyone. Maybe tomorrow!