COVID ZOMBIES: A High School Teachers' Aide Journey Through the Pandemic

COVID ZOMBIES, is a harrowing journey through the COVID-19 Pandemic of 2020, in poems and essays. In chronological order, the writer, BRIAN SHAW, takes you into his life as a high school teachers' aide and behaviorist in March 2020-through a desolate, post-apocalyptic landscape, bereft of cars and people.

From there, the writer carries you into a world that is slowly reopening, where doctors were as confused, as the writer, by mysterious symptoms, that weren’t resolving for him, dumping you onto a roller coaster ride, that continued from the Summer of 2020, well into, 2021.

Unable to be tested for COVID-19, early in the Pandemic, this Coronavirus, has turned into a debilitating disease, over time, for the writer, resulting in a loss of his job, child, with backroom politics and bureaucracy, testing his patience, at every turn. He struggled, finding support from his employer, state, even family and friends--while a team of doctors, used him, like a guinea pig. What started out, as a wonderland for the writer, it soon became something, out of a dystopian nightmare, Shaw explains. "Everywhere I turned, it seemed like we were all zombies, wandering around, looking for someone who had a plan, because, there wasn't one," he added. “The worst part was, I was getting sicker by the day.”

Whether there were shortages of COVID-19 tests, food or Vaccines, the snail's pace, at which life was progressing, was maddening, to the author. “People stayed home and stockpiled items, waiting for answers, but, none were coming and so, in being, a longtime journalist, I started writing about my experiences, because I knew of, no other way, to deal with the madness."

“All I know is, within weeks, I couldn't smell, taste, walk or talk," Shaw added. "Medical professionals always had the same four word reply: 'We just don't know.' This book, is my attempt, at filling in some of the blanks, that we zombies, rather, we, the long haulers and survivors, of COVID-19, may still have.”

About The Author:
Brian Shaw is a school behaviorist who wrote and performed, Spoken Word poetry in the early-to-mid 1990's, but, stopped after too many friends and fellow artists, had passed away. Brian was pulled back into poetry, after he contracted COVID and Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome (MIS-A), in March 2020 and was unable to smell or talk, for any prolonged, period of time. Living alone after medical issues, grew too great to raise his son, Brian's only contact with the world, outside of mandatory doctor's visits, consisted of writing poems on his phone notes app, a practice that grew into hundreds of poems, by 2021. Weeks after seeing an ad on Twitter in late 2020, asking for submissions, Brian e-mailed one of his poems to a renowned poet, who was compiling, an anthology. Days later, an e-mail was received, informing Brian, that his poem, "The Last Day I Could Smell," would be featured in The Anthology 2020: The Year That Changed America.

COVID ZOMBIES is now available.