It is indeed love.

Benjam and I have been playing a game called Tactics Arena Online. It's a decent game, kinda like Chess but with a few more options and the ability to choose your setup. I haven't really played enough to know whether my setup is "optimal" but it doesn't really bother me that much. One of the problems with the game is that if you're playing a jackass and they're losing then they can just quit without surrendering the game. Even when you're not concerned with your ranking this can still leave a sour taste in your mouth. I hunger for that sweet "GG" post-annihilation of my opponent. Also every now and then you will encounter a gold player (ie someone lame enough to spend real moneys on buying special units for the game). You probably won't win but playing these guys is still fun, especially if you kill a bunch of their units and make them work for the win.

I've been listening to a lot of music lately and I'm currently in love with three bands. Tegan and Sara, Kings of Leon and Clap Your Hands Say Yeah. They all have interesting but different vocal styles and slightly more bouncy riffs than I am generally accustomed to. But they make me happy in my ears and this is a good thing I suspect. Is this love? promotes an awesome feeling that is visceral and (if I may borrow the term) "incendiary". If you disagree then you are misguided and I pity you.

I've been writing as well but it is mostly the aborted workings of my mind and unsuitable for general consumption. What a lovely image. But I did write about zombies and since I'm no mood to edit it further you may read it and possibly cringe. I know I did.

The zombies pounded their wet fleshy bodies into the door. He could hear them slapping against the walls. Their frenzied tearing and screaming filled the night. He held his shotgun close to his chest, stroking the barrel and fingering the trigger. In the corner of the room Alison cowered, sobbing. Her hair hung over her face, a pitiful camouflage. Her body was wracked with sobs and tears streamed down her arms as she tried to rub them away. Sam didn’t have time to comfort her. He thumbed two shells into the gun and then shut it with a loud snap. Alison scrabbled to get even further into the corner, as far from the death and pain as she could.

The room was small and cold and dirty. What might once have been a loving home had been hit by a bomb. The walls were torn and blood smeared, the faded children’s wallpaper a ghastly parody of a once happy life. There were boards of wood nailed over the window. Shattered glass on the floor had mixed in with the blood and the piss and the shit. In the centre of the room an axe was wedged deeply into the splintered remains of a broken baby’s cot.

Holding the shotgun in his left hand Sam pulled the axe from the cot with his right. He had to use his foot to help dislodge it but kicking the cot away made him feel better. He wanted to smash it into a million pieces but right now he couldn’t afford to waste the energy. Instead he stood by the window, waiting and watching. Hours passed as he stood. He wanted to sleep almost as much as he wanted to die. His eyes blurred and flickered as he dozed on his feet.

A twisted hand shot through the planks, scrabbling for some purchase, tearing at the planks from the inside. The sudden movement startled Sam into action. He smashed the hand clumsily with the axe, not scoring a substantial hit but distracting it from tearing at the barricades. As the hand strained to catch him he lined up a second hit. The contact splintered the arm, grinding through the rotting flesh. Instead of pulling back in pain the limb began to flail more violently. There was a flurry of activity outside the window as other zombies began to rush the window. Sam stepped back from the window readying his axe. He was scared of dying this way, being torn apart and eaten. He was scared of dying in this shitty little hovel. But that fear made him angry. Alison’s fear made him angry and he knew what to do with that anger.

Another arm crashed into the wood but only emerged partially through the barrier. Sam hacked at it anyway. He was beyond worrying about the defences. He succeeded in making the hole bigger but he also caught the zombie arm at the elbow. It flopped around grotesquely, swinging dangerously close to Sam’s face. With another blow from the axe he severed it completely. A face pushed through the hole, gaping and snarling. Its glazed eyes must have spotted Sam because it lunged forward, gnashing its teeth and squealing. His axe split the face open and rotting flesh spilled over Sam’s hands. He gagged as he swung again, determined to finish the abomination. The window broke under the weight of countless animate corpses.

Alison howled in abject fear as a legion of the undead poured through the shattered window overwhelming Sam. He scrabbled frantically backwards to her corner, desperately clawing for his shotgun. But zombie teeth sunk into his arm and his leg and his neck. His flesh was torn from his bones and his blood spilt over the child. She moaned and shrieked as the horror engulfed her. The blood dripped down from their mouths on her snivelling head and she was baptised in gore.

She moaned for hours in the dark waiting for them to come and finish her but they did not. They left her shattered spirit there to die.