KRIS ASHTON

As mentioned in the story behind ‘Bite Back’, I wrote ‘Mere Symptoms of Living’ sometime around 2005. The idea came to me nearly 20 years earlier, as a child, after watching the original Dawn of the Dead (1978) movie. I remember sitting on the toilet and thinking it would be a safe place if zombies overran the world. But how would you get out?

 

I was still unpublished when I had a stab at writing ‘Mere Symptoms’ and I opted for a languid, philosophical tone (which I thought was appropriate for someone in that situation). It did the rounds but no editor bit, and when I returned to it a few years after ‘retiring’ it, I could see why.

 

Like a lot of my earlier work, though, I thought it still had a solid core. Setting aside all thoughts of mercy, I took to it with a razor and cut more than 1000 words of self-indulgent rambling.

I’m quite fond of the final product: it’s retained its philosophy without (I hope) being boring. And it’s kind of a companion piece to ‘Bite Back’, a sober, thoughtful yin to that story’s gibbering, gory yang.