If you’ve been online even a little bit the past week you know one topic has been dominating the conversation. Namely, should the actions of a post-death, "Zombie" Abe Lincoln tarnish the many legislative achievements of his historic political career? My opinion? A little bit.
Not enough to erase all the good he once did, but c’mon, biting the face off a bus driver and six Italian tourists is not an easy thing to smooth over. That’s not an ideal situation, for even an alive politician, still in possession of his tongue and the power of speech, who could possibly defend the act. It’s hard to imagine that drooling, shambling, dull-eyed wreck of a thing as the once proud man who defeated the secessionist Confederate States of America in the Civil War. Seeing his jaws clamped onto the arm of that hapless hobo, it’s hard to conjure the brilliant orator who once fearlessly out maneuvered Stephen Douglas during the fabled Lincoln/Douglas debates... but there it is. When all is said and done -- and he’s once again beneath the ground where he belongs -- public opinion on him will have lowered slightly.
After a few more years, though, the actions of the past few weeks will settle into the background. The world will move on and eventually, Lincoln's zombie rampage will take its place as a minor footnote among the much longer list of many notable things he accomplished.
Which is as it should be. A man's post-death actions should not undo all the good he did while alive, any more than positive post-death actions should be able to erase the evil a man did before death. I mean, if Vampire Hitler came back tomorrow, ignored his impulses to drink human blood and focused entirely on children’s charity work and taking pledges for 10k runs benefiting animals in need, would it erase what he’d done when alive? No. I mean, sure, we’d applaud the effort, and certainly those kids could use some new school supplies and medicine, but he’d still be considered a huge dick. Same goes for "Friendly Ghost" Saddam Hussein (just being friendly isn’t enough, my man.) or Frankenstein’s monster Jack the Ripper, re-built and sent here to talk about autism. YES, it’s good to get the word out and educate people; NO it doesn’t undo your earlier legacy of terror.
Having settled that, let’s get to the fight.
Killing a Zombie Abe Lincoln will be easy. A zombie is a zombie. Zombie Abe Lincoln is no different than Zombie John Quincy Adams or Zombie Franklin Pierce. (I mean, as far as killing them goes. Politically speaking they were all over the map and not at all comparable) Even non-presidential zombies (zombies that were never elected president) are killed the same way. Simply destroy a significant part of the brain or separate the brain from the body. Use whatever’s around you. A sword, axe, or baseball bat will work. Or if you happened to have traveled back in time and are fighting Zombie Abe Lincoln during his era, the same rules apply. Use an old-timey sword, old-timey axe, or old-timey baseball bat.
Again, that part's easy. The hard part will be living with your actions.
Living with the knowledge of what you’ve done to the animated corpse of a once great man, who when you squint, still kinda looks like honest Abe. It won’t matter that he’d been infected and devoured half the cul-de-sac before you stepped in. Not to you and not to the others.
Sleepless nights await you... Feverish dreams that erupt in wide-awake screams that startle your wife, and make her question just who it was she married lo those many years ago.
The disappointed stares of your children await you. Children who, in addition to attending school and learning of Abe’s great work during the Civil War, will now learn of how their father smeared his brain-craving head all over the front of the family Buick. A brain that once penned the Emancipation Proclamation.
The neighbors will hustle themselves from their car into their house a little quicker when they see you approach. The police and firefighters will be a little slower coming by when they spot your address on the ledger…
Eventually, years from now when you pass on, the neighborhood toughs will vandalize your tombstone, spray-painting a beard and top hat onto it. No one will care. Some will not understand the reference. Though when it is explained to them they will snicker. Heartily.
You had to do it. Everyone knows that, and on some level they'll understand (Cats were disappearing, mailboxes were inexplicably covered in goo, people were really bummed out the few times a day they'd run into him...) but it won’t matter. A great leader was taken from us too soon, twice. And this time it was your fault.
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Thanks to the great Fiona Staples for the Zombie Lincoln sketch. And thanks to commenter HyperText for the suggestion.
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