First Person Shooter

When you first read the title of Charles Yu's, "First Person Shooter," from his book of short stories (Sorry Please Thank You), his title gives you no preparations for how the story will unfold. The story centers on a young man and his infatuation with a co- worker by the name of Janine. He cannot seem to work up the nerve to ask her out, constantly berating himself because his lack of courage, "The whole way over to Home and Bath, I'm just repeating to myself, under my breath, stupid stupid stupid stupid dummy." He accepts all reasons to believe that he has no chance to ever be with her," The only thing that makes me feel better is that none of this really matters since I don't have a chance in hell with her anyway." Most reading would automatically jump to the conclusion that this would be the usual romantic setting for a promising love story, but the story makes a sudden change that draws on the readers' curiosity.

Janine has informed him that there is a lone finger waiting in the housewares aisle and to his surprise, there is indeed a human finger lying casually there. As the story unwinds, it is discovered that the finger belongs to a zombie woman wandering around the department store, "It's a. A zombie. A woman. A zombie woman. She's older than Janine, closer to my age, maybe early thirties, missing a little bit of her face, but otherwise sort of pretty in a melancholy way." Janine proceeds to panic and run away without the slightest thought, but the young man takes the time to notice that the zombie woman has a hint of emotion to her face, which he resolved as a sign of her own sense of nervousness. It comes to his realization that the zombie woman is not there to terrorize them, but actually there for something much simpler. He acknowledges the fact she only wishes for his opinion, he way of showing him her outreach of humanness. "holds up two different tubes of lipstick, one blood red and one that's more of an earth tone, and then I understand. She wants my opinion. I step back, look at her skin--which I guess is sort of a grayish baloney color--and I point to the earth-toned tube." His own nervousness begins to subside, oddly because he cannot seem to control this same anxiety around Janine.

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