Easter. The time where we eat awful quantities of chocolate and all the shops shut. Easter works best when a nation is prosperous, and people can afford to spend their fortunes on 1 kg chocolate rabbits, but what about after the world ends?
I know that this has been playing on your mind an awful lot. When New Zealand – or whichever country you occupy – turns tits up and becomes a post-apocalyptic nightmare, how will you continue to celebrate this hallowed holiday?
I have some Easter egg alternatives for you!
1. Human skulls
Look, you can go scavenging for a volleyball and some leaves if you wanna go all Wilson on this, but good luck finding one. However, with a good 4.7 million humans living in New Zealand (and some 7 billion internationally), even a few nuclear bombs won’t ruin your chances of finding a human skeleton to work with.
Now, your average human skull isn’t going to be easy to just rip off. After a little research into (albeit dubious) sources, it seems that you’d need over 5,000 Newtons of force to decapitate someone with your bare hands. But your average person can barely pull up to 200 Newtons, so no chances there.
So before you can think about decorating your human skull, you will need to find an appropriate cutting instrument to severe the head that way. This can even be done in the Wasteland with zero modern supplies, by reverting back to primitive technology and making a stone axe. Like the video below…
-Decorating your Easter skull
With something as subjective as decoration, I can’t tell you exactly what will work best for you. But if you want some extra advice, I recommend one of two options:
- Happy Smiley Face: Without skinning anything off, clean your skull and sew up the neck hole – so it’s a bit less messy. Now you can sew the eyelids, brows and lips into a happy-face position, giving it a permanent cheeriness. Lids and brows are very important, so don’t forget them (lest ye have a creepy happy grin accompanied by whatever shocked expression your skull died with).
- Classic skull: Of course, the best permanent smile comes from the skeleton. If you clean out and skin your Easter skull down to the bone, you can polish it to give yourself a pleasant, Easter friend. You can leave it plain if you want, or use some of the decorating advice from the next section of this article.
2. Rocks
What a classic – and in such abundance, too! Rocks are man’s true best friend, when all other friends have either deserted him or died horribly in a nuclear attack. Rocks can be easily found, they can be shaped (eventually), and they can be painted. This allows you to have the perfect post-apocalyptic Easter alternative, without killing a soul.
Unless rocks gain souls after the bombs drop, but that’ll be an issue for a later date…
-But how do you make paint?
In New Zealand, there are a few ways to get a decent pigment out of the earth (aside from just using the blood of your enemies).
Historically, Maori used ochre – a natural pigment, typically red – to create cave paintings. According to Te Ara, haematite (known as Kokowai), was typically ground into a powder and mixed with shark oil to create paint. It can be found in areas of volcanic activity. Darker tones can also be achieved by utilising the same process Maori used to create ink for Ta moko – which you can read about on Te Ara’s website below.
Read more: Ta moko technology
3. Hallucinate
Of course, in my opinion, the easiest way to get some crazy post-nuclear Easter eggs is to, well. go crazy!
Seventy percent of those who suffer from schizophrenia, for example, see things that aren’t real – also known as a visual hallucination. Web MD suggests that these visions could take the form of occipital seizures, which cause the sufferer to see bright spots and shapes – close enough to an Easter egg.
But visual hallucinations can be caused by numerous different factors. According to a 1986 study by Asaad and Shapiro, visual hallucinations could be caused by either a “disturbance in brain structure”, an imbalance in neurotransmitter chemicals or the unconscious emerging in the conscious.
Read more: Visual Hallucinations: Differential diagnosis and treatment
So what I take from that is: If you believe hard enough, and you’re going through plenty of apocalyptic stress, you will eventually see a glorious basket of Easter eggs ready to be eaten! Hell, maybe they’ll even talk to you, and you’ll have a friend for once.
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