FERIA APOCALYPSE; or, HOW TO BE PART OF THE PROBLEM

my neighbor saw one, a feria zombie, or, rather, he heard something lumbering up the marble stairs at eight-thirty in the morning and switched on the light in the stairway just in time to catch the thing turning out onto the second floor in yesterday's suit. they're afraid of the light, because it's the light that betrays the shoes, the pant legs and the ruffles covered in horseshit and dust, that yesterday's suit was yesterday's suit yesterday, too. and so the neighbor sees the zombie cringe as it lumbers over to the next flight of stairs over yesterday's blisters. the zombies have a disease, and the disease is called sevillanas. and the night of the lighting of the portada they follow the smell of yesterday's fish until they can see the first of the three hundred thousand bulbs in the distance and then crush against each other to follow the flow of the hunger through the streets of los remedios to the fairgrounds. two million mad maxes lumbering to the thunderdome to battle as many partners as possible before they crowd back into buses and taxis -- or try to lumber themselves home on foot -- before the ugly light of the morning. and every morning, the zombies swear it off. and every night the hunger returns stronger. and every afternoon another soiled shirt and two million preliminary battles in the mirror, driven by the hunger, another frantic tear through closets and accessory drawers to try to make yesterday's dresses and suits look new again. by the fourth day, the post will not come, and the dry cleaners won't open. it's the zombies on their own, for themselves, in the thunderdome. and it doesn't hurt (although it doesn't necessarily help, either) that the feria is all of the battlers' collective wedding, prom and bar mitzvah all at once. the hunger for the celebration feeds itself. and you might groan, but then, over the groans of all of the zombies, you hear one of them speak: "i've gotta get home. i'm dying. and i really need to see how many people liked my picture on facebook."