Brains... BRAAAAIIINS!!!!!

The Zombie apocalypse is coming. We all know this. It's not a secret. Even the CDC has acknowledged that we should be preparing for the inevitable. What's a zombie you ask? Surely you know! Have cinema and popular television taught you nothing? Well, if you are one of the uninformed, going about your day waiting for sunshine and daisies to sprout from your footsteps, I'm about to punch the rose-colored glasses off of your face.

Zombies, my friends, are the dead. But, they're not just the regular dead. 

No.
They're the UNdead, and not undead like those posh, blood sucking, dandies the Vampires. Oh no. These dead guys aren't going to romance, seduce, or sparkle at you. AT ALL. They just want to infect you, or eat you.  Specifically, they want to eat your brain, but they'll take a chunk out of whatever they can reach. They don't feel. They don't fear. They just hunger... for YOU!

At first glance, this appears to be a brain hat... but it's not. It's a knit brain that was exhibited at the Beaverbrook Art Gallery in 1999,  by textile artist Sarah Maloney. It may be a nice piece of textile art, but I think it serves the world better as what it should be, a decoy. It's really a brilliant ploy in the fight against the legions of the undead. A brain on a pole... maybe toss a little blood on it to get the olfactory senses going and you won't be able to shake the undead off with a stick... which you should know is a poor choice of weapon against them. 

Take your decoy and set it up in a nice clear area. Grab your high powered rifle with plenty of ammo, hightail it to a handy rooftop, and start blasting away as the zombies start streaming out of the vacant office building/ dark alley/ abandoned park/ mist filled cemetary. Do not stop the slaughter until you've cleared the zone. (Oh, and because zombies are jerks, save a few bullets for the lone zombie that's waiting for you in the dark shadow just outside the exit to the building.)

This is a bad idea, terrible. You know at Thanksgiving how mom brings out the turkey, and everyone's waiting in antici...pation, salivating like one of Pavlov's dogs, unfettered joy on each face at the prospect of ripping that delicious bird limb from limb? Well, it's Thanksgiving Day sweet cheeks, and you're on the platter! When a Zombie sees your choice of headgear, he's not going to stop and tell you what a clever hat you've crafted. No, he's going to come at you like aunt Susan digging into the sweet potato casserole... hard and fast, until she's scraping the bowl clean... and by bowl, I mean your empty cranium.

 And here's how it often starts. Some scientist goes about playing God and ends up dooming us all.  Today's Zombies are usually the result of something gone horribly involving animal testing, virus experimentation, or just good old fashioned mad science. The chimp bites you. Someone drops the vial. The proteins finally mutate. You name it, it's never good when the white coats get involved. The mad-capped mad scientist here is just helping the inevitable along. No one in the labs ever survives the initial onslaught.

Taunting the undead is never smart. Sure, you've got the functioning cerebral cortex and the non- necrotic limbs, but you mark my words, you taunt a zombie, you'll get eaten. Remember, zombies are fast nowadays, they'll catch ya! That being said, it's an excellent craft, beautifully knit, and I'm sure the zombies will think so too... as they're ripping through it to get to the sweet brainloaf below.

Interesting, interesting... yes, the brain is exposed here, but unlike the above examples, it doesn't look so fresh and tasty. The (technically correct) grey color, the addition of the blood spatters, the dark black of the hat, perhaps this is some crafter's attempt at a disguise? It's a risky prospect, trying to assimilate yourself into the undead horde, but if you're surrounded by the mob, unable to escape, trying to blend in may be your only option.

Of course, you'll test it on an animal first... don't you know that's probably how you got in this mess in the first place?

grapevinefires
Oh, and fyi, there's no guarantee you'll survive just because Fido does.

the drugged zombie
And, if they don't finish you off, the zombie virus (because it's always a virus now) will course through the remains of your system, shutting down every vital function that makes you who you are, eventually converting you into one of the mindless, emotionless, walking dead themselves. But hey, you'll be fine! After all, what can that rag-tag group of survivors armed with nothing more than a few shotguns, a can of hairspray and a lighter, and a 1970's conversion van do to you?

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