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Thursday, January 5, 2012

2012 / At Large Necropolis Now

Posted by Paul Constant on Thu, Jan 5, 2012 at 9:13 AM

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If you’re looking for a sign that we live in a nation that is heading into some sort of strange cultural shift, I have your proof. In the East Village neighborhood of Des Moines, you can eat at a restaurant called Zombie Burger. It’s a zombie-themed restaurant, which basically makes it a cannibal-themed restaurant. The menu is elaborately disguised as a newspaper (The Villager, “Independent Newspaper of the East Village”) documenting an apocalyptic undead assault on Des Moines, with people being eaten by their malevolently resurrected friends and neighbors. All the usual menu items are here, dolled up in imagery intended to evoke the rending and tearing and consumption of living flesh, including “Soylent Greens” and “goreMet Bashed Burgers” like the T-Virus, the Dead Moines, and the Walking Ched (“breaded + deep fried macaroni + cheese bun, bacon, Cheddar cheese, caramelized + raw onion, mayo”). It’s impossible to think that 20 years ago, people would have eaten here; an earlier generation would run, vomiting, from such a gaudy display of culinary atrocity. Instead, it’s always packed full of living, breathing humans hungry for dead flesh.

Des Moines’ most remarkable feature is its miles of “skywalks,” a network of climate-controlled sky bridges constructed one story above the streets. Banks, stores, and entire food courts can be found in this aerial warren. Workers from the many insurance companies located in downtown Des Moines wander around the skywalk at lunchtime, red-cheeked and rosy, chatting about workplace dramas. If you look a little closer, though, you notice that many of them have got the crazy-eyed look of cabin fever, the glassy stare of people who haven’t touched fresh air in God knows how long. Something about this weird urban hamster track makes every single young man look like he’s planning a workplace shooting...

(Keep reading.)