The Ten Second Video

Brandon Figliolino

The Ten Second Video

November 23, 2019

            Can a ten second video change your life?

It was November 23, 2015. I was sitting at my desk in a corporate office, processing orders for a technology company. While I typed away, my phone buzzed.

            I received a Snapchat from my sister. Snapchat, a video and photo-sharing app, had been around for several years at that point, but I had just started getting into it. I enjoyed sending photos of my cat, Lucas Logan, to my family. The rest of the photos I shared were generally of me on my bike. It was a fun app and a good way to decompress.

            I finished processing the order and took a break to check the Snapchat my sister had sent. I clicked the icon with the white ghost. My sister’s username popped up with a red the square. I clicked it. A small, grey tabby in a metal cage appeared. Wide eyed, she stuck her paw through the metal slats, trying to catch a feather toy that my sister was dangling. My sister was laughing in the background. Within ten seconds, the video vanished.

            Whose cat is that? I texted, knowing full-well she was in a shelter.

            Her name is Emma! I went to PetSmart to play with the cats, she responded.

            Which PetSmart?

            The rest of the afternoon, I was fixated on this cat. I loved Lucas but had been growing more guilty of leaving him at home alone. My work schedule had changed, and I had taken on more volunteering opportunities. I wondered if he needed a friend.

            Maybe I needed one, too.

            When five o’clock came around, I hurried to PetSmart, clear across town from where I worked. I walked straight back to the cat adoption area and found an employee.

            “I’m here to see a cat,” I told the young high school student with purpose. “Her name is Emma.”

            He brought me in to the room. There weren’t many cats in there. I smiled at them all and said a little prayer for each in my head. May you find your forever homes.

            Then I saw her. She was curled up in the front of the cage, tufts of her fur popping through the slats.

            “Hi there,” I said. I poked a few fingers through the metal wires to scratch her head. She raised her head, cooing.

            I looked over to the store employee. “Can I hold her?”

            He unlocked the cage. She hopped down onto the floor from quite the height and started running around the room. When she settled down, I walked over and petted her. She rolled onto her side, cupped my hand between her front paws, then started kicking me like a rabbit. Then she hopped up, bolted to the other side of the room, and then raced back to me, sending out little chirps into the air.

            It was adorable.

            “Do you know anything about her?” I asked the employee.

            He shook his head. “I only know what is on the sheet over there,” he said pointing to her intake paper hung on the door of her cage. It said she was about a year old and came from a shelter in Texas.                               

            Emma stopped running for a minute and took a seat next to me. I looked into her warm eyes as she blinked.

            I didn’t have a cat carrier on hand, so I bought a $12 one made of cardboard. She didn’t like it at all. When I put her in the car, she howled and cried. I tried to reassure her that it would only be temporary, but that didn’t stop her from expressing her fear. I started the car.

            “You’re going to be okay, Emma. You’re coming home.” Before I put the car into gear, I connected my phone to the stereo system.

            “How about we listen to music?” I fumbled through my playlists until I found one that caught my eye: the orchestral soundtrack to the show Once Upon a Time. The fantasy series, based off fairy tales, is the story about a woman named Emma Swan who returns to the town of Storybrooke to defeat the Evil Queen.

It was the perfect, calm soundtrack for the car ride home. The car rolled along, and Emma calmed down, listening to the music.

“I wonder if there is a Storybrooke in Texas, Miss Emma Swan,” I mused aloud.

After a bit, I called my mom.

“I did something crazy.”

“What’s that?” she asked.

“Ashley sent me a video of a cat at the pet store and I just adopted her.”

“Congratulations! I’m glad I have another grand kitty.”

We arrived home. Seeing as I had not done any research on how to introduce cats, I set the cardboard box down on in the front hall. This is not the preferred method I have since learned. Lucas Logan strolled in from the bedroom, meowing for his dinner.

“Hi buddy! I have a surprise for you.” I opened the box. Emma popped out and began exploring the condo, tail wagging. Lucas followed in tow, keeping his distance, but unwilling to let Emma out of his sight. While they explored, I prepared their wet food dinner. I set the two plates side-by-side on the kitchen floor. The new friends sat and had their first meal together.

When it was bedtime, I called for the cats. Lucas hopped on the bed and Emma quickly followed, taking a place right beside Lucas.

My family had gotten bigger and I couldn’t have been happier.

At the time, Snapchat had been an entertaining way to send selfies to my friends and a way to show-off my cycling adventures, but all those previous and subsequent “snaps” seem irrelevant now. That video my sister shared was a gateway to what has since been years of happiness. Emma has been with me through new jobs, new friendships, a move to Denver, and so many great memories, experiences I would have missed were it not for my sister’s impromptu decision to send me a Snapchat video of a cat playing with a toy. Emma is attention-seeking, playful, and always by my side or on my lap, in good times and crummy ones. In the TV show, Emma Swan is the savior of Storybrooke. In some ways, Emma saved me and Lucas, too. She still does.

There’s a piece of me that is thankful for Snapchat’s existence. Had it not been around, I may not have found Emma Swan of Storybrooke, and no doubt my life would have been a little emptier.

            It turns out, a ten second video can change your life.

                                         

Zombie and His New Job

Brandon Figliolino

Zombie and His New Job

November 17, 2019

            My first college-level writing workshop was taught by an amazing horror fiction writer. Before taking the course, I had little exposure to the genre, and I hadn’t read any of his work. I’d get nightmares from reading Goosebumps and A Series of Unfortunate Events as a child, so stories of terror didn’t appeal to me. I had no interest or business reading nightmarish prose. Still, the class seemed exciting and I was prepared to do my best.

            Our first assignment was to write a short story about zombies. Of course! I thought. It made sense that our professor would help us develop the ability to terrify people on paper. The parameters of the paper included what would become the usual: an eight-to-twelve-page limit, double-spaced, and twelve-point font. Each story had to start with the words, “I told them you couldn’t do that with a zombie.”

            Class was dismissed. I went home and started writing.

            Or I tried writing.

I stared at my computer screen for an insufferable amount of time. I had no idea how I was going to write anything scary. Apocalypses were cliché in 2009, even before Walking Dead and Zombieland. I didn’t want to write about zombie attacks, brains, guts, or blood.

I guess I didn’t want to write about zombies.

            After several rounds of typing, highlighting my text, and striking the delete button, I decided to drop the horror genre. The story had to include a zombie, but nothing was said about what the zombie did or in what tone it did it. I decided to write a feel-good story about a recruiter who helped a zombie get a job, many years before I decided to make that my profession. It started like this:

            I told her she couldn’t do that with a zombie, work with him that is.

          Nineteen-year-old Brandon didn’t know why it was important for humanity’s sake not to end sentences with prepositions.

          Throughout the story, the narrator took the zombie around town to try out different jobs. Edgar, the zombie, failed as a playground monitor and a plane-jumping instructor. The career services counselor eventually found him the perfect job in a horror film.

How cliché!

                                                          ***

          Fast-forward ten years. Instead of sitting in a classroom in Boulder, I’m sitting in a dark bar. One woman paints my face with fake pus and blood, her eyes intense and focused. Another woman circles us both, snapping photos with her professional camera.

          “Try keeping a straight face,” the camera woman tells me.

          I nod and drop the smile. Outside, I hear screaming. Without turning my head, I shift my eyes to the window near us. I see people running across the street dodging one another. My stalwart face cracks into a grin.

          “Sorry, I’ll try not to smile,” I tell them both.

          “You’re very happy,” the makeup artist says, applying a bloody gash to my forehead. “It’s definitely out of character.”

          I shrug. “Yeah, I’m going to have a hard time with this job.”

          After ten minutes, the makeup artist finishes. She hands me a mirror. My face is ghost white. Black circles surrounded my eyes and sticky blood and gore drip from my mouth onto my chin.

          “It looks like you ate something really nasty and forgot to wipe your face,” the photographer says.

          “When you’re a zombie, I guess hygiene doesn’t matter much,” I reply.

          “I think you’re ready for the action!” The makeup artist takes the mirror. “Good luck and have fun.”

          I step out into the blinding October sun. The crowd has died down. Several dozen people are huddled across the street at various bars, touch football flags dangling from their waists. In the street are my peeps: zombies. There is a dead Waldo, who looks like he has been retrieved from a shallow grave. A military man has half his face blown off and is missing an eye. My favorite zombie is a businesswoman who has a scowl on her face and this determination to attack anything that comes near. She is also one of my close friends from graduate school, and the reason I am walking around a street in all black with fake blood on my face.

          “Hi!” I shout to her. We exchange hugs. “Let’s go eat some people or whatever we’re doing.”

          “Steal their flags!” she says. “They’re running from bar to bar. You must stumble like a zombie, but it’s not too hard to grab the flags! When they run out of flags, they must buy more, so get as many as you can.”

          “I’ll take your lead!” I say.

          Music from a DJ starts up. Thriller. The perfect segue into my role as a zombie. I eye a group of women who look ready to bolt. They dart past me shrieking. I reach out haphazardly to grab at their flags and miss. I burst into laughter.

          My friend walks up and bops me on the forearm with a closed fist. “You’re the worst zombie ever! Stop laughing!” she jokes. “Be scary!” She turns to a runner, raises her hands in front of her and shouts, “Garrrrr!”

          I’m laughing so hard I prop myself up by holding my hands to my bent knees. “I can’t stop laughing! This is so ridiculous!”

          “Get it together, Brandon! Get their flags.” She smiles and starts walking towards a bar entrance, continuing to growl at the runners.

          That only makes me laugh harder.

          An hour passes. I have caught zero flags. If I had a Fitbit or step counter, it would say I have slow-walked the single block at least several miles. There are more runners now. It is time to get serious.

          I want to grab at least one flag. I can’t let the zombies down!

          With that determination, I snag my first flag. Thinking I’m harmless, a woman walks right past me while I am dancing. I reach out and snatch it from her belt, enjoying the sound of the Velcro pieces coming undone.

          Ha!

          I drag my feet towards my friend, waving the flag ahead of me.

          “Look! I got one!”

          We high-five and I continue with my new strategy: looking like the happiest, most ridiculous zombie ever, essentially the normal, undead version of myself. I dance. I pump my arms in front of me and above my head. I clap my hands to the music. I wave and smile at everyone and constantly laugh. Both zombies, runners, and passers-by come over to talk to me.

Towards the end of the day, a family walking towards downtown stops so the son can look at the zombies. I start walking towards him. With a finger extended, I say in the cheery tone I use when speaking to my nephew, “I’m going to get you!” The boy screams with delight and plays along with the bar runners for half an hour, bolting back-and-forth across the street while his mom and grandmother snap photos and videos on their phones.

There is little doubt my dancing will be on many Snapchat and Instagram stories today.

          These bar hoppers are such fools to think I am not a threat. Pretty soon, I have accumulated four flags. My fifth and final flag comes from a woman who boxes herself between a car and a queue fence.

          “Well that was dumb of me,” she says when I approach.

          I take her flag. “Yup! Enjoy your day!”

          At five, the music stops and one of the hosts for the event announces over the sound system that the 2019 End of the World Pub Crawl has ended and the proceeds from the event will go towards two charities, one of which is a nonprofit my friend the zombie businesswoman chairs.  

          The bar runners cheer and clap for the zombies. Several come out on the street to exchange hugs. I take several bows.

                                                          ***

          Throughout my day as a zombie, I kept thinking back to my short story, Zombie Gets a Job. Poor Edgar floundered at the jobs he was given. He ate a little girls’ flower on the playground and was fired for it. He pushed a guy out of the plane without a parachute and caused him to break both his legs. I thought I was coming up short as a zombie too. I wasn’t scary and although I was dressed in skinny black jeans and a black shirt, I didn’t look like something from Resident Evil.  

I felt out of place until I leaned into the role. Not every short story needs to be graphic and violent and not every zombie needs to growl and screech and eat brains; some of us like to dance to Thriller and take photos with random strangers.

          For many years I thought the world was black and white and that there were rules and parameters that had to be followed for people to fit into society. For example, zombies were evil and ate brains and belonged in horror stories and shouldn’t laugh and smile. But when those confines are broken, zombies get to be themselves, clichés are buried, and life is more fun. Zombies can act however they’d like and perform whatever job is their passion.

That’s the way I like them best.