World War Z and Zombie Poultry. The Real Life Story of Mike, the Headless Chicken

Zombies have been on top of the wave of public interest for quite some time now; some may say that for too long. Truth is the genre is fascinating but you can only spin the end of the world by the hands of mindless eating machines so many times. It's getting repetitive and boring. There will always be the hard-core fans, but to the general public, the wave is approaching the beach. Or is it, really? When one of the most popular actors of these times--Hello there, Brad Pitt!--stars in the movie adaptation of one of the most iconic zombie books of recent times, one might be inclined to think the fun has just begun.

But not me. I do think this wave is about to reach the beach, and in true wave fashion, it'll go with a huge splash. World War Z, the movie--which, may I say, looks AWESOME!--will cause the biggest splash, filling theaters with over-excited fans--like me. We'll surely get a few other, smaller splashes and then the genre will fade out for a few years. Hopefully. Not another Romero remake in at least a decade, let's cross our fingers...

But will zombies be forgotten? I don't think so. The zombie figure is a predominant one in our unconscious mind, and then there are all the strange occurrences; like the guy in Miami who ate another man on a busy highway in the middle of the day. Turns out he was under the influence of some kind of drug--what a shocker. Still, for a moment there I feared I might had postponed my bunker buying for a little too long. And there have been more similar incidences. But if that wasn't giving you nightmares, then the CDC decides to post an official memo on Zombie Preparedness... Nop, I think the fear of the dead is quite alive.

Mind you, I haven't bought that bunker just yet. Mostly because I'm penniless. And my neighborhood doomsday prepper is not that friendly.

Come to think of it, I may know just the story to inject the genre with a bit of liveness. A 'real life story' is always welcome in Hollywood, isn't it? So I give you the story of Mike, the Headless Chicken.

It happened in 1945 in a Colorado farm, when one fine morning Lloyd Olsen went out to his yard to kill a chicken for dinner. Now, Olson must have followed the same procedure a hundred times, yet he did a lousy job on this one. Turns out, his machete had missed the jugular vein and left most of the chicken's brain stem intact. So what is the sensible thing to do under such strenuous circumstances? Why, you name your chicken and take it to the carnival! As part of the sideshow.

Mike, the Headless Chicken had almost all of his basic functions, like walking, breathing, and having a pulse. He even attempted to crow, which must've been fun... not. Since he couldn't eat himself--having no beak can do that to you--he was fed via eyedropper. He lived 18 whole months like that, and now there is a yearly festival in his hometown to commemorate this hard-to-kill rooster.

How is this story any scary? Well, granted, Mike wouldn't be able to eat us--being headless and all--but it is freaky. And then it got me thinking... What if the next avian flu does to us what the skillful Olsen did to Mike? Albeit without the actual cutting. What if a new virus just kills enough of our brain that we can actually walk and eat without conscious thought left? Even if we didn't feed on each other, it would mean the end of our race. And that's scary...

So what do you say? Who wants to write the script?