Zombies Never Die

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((Siyanda Nagi continued from The Noble Eavesdropper))

At some point, when ze bothered to retrace zir steps and look back at all the little butterfly effects that led zem to wherever ze was in the present, Siyanda would decide that the thing which ultimately saved zir life was falling asleep in calculus that one time.

Thursday was already the worst day of the week, and calculus was just right in the middle of the day on zir schedule, in that valley where the morning caffeine had started to wear off, but it wasn’t yet time for lunch so there was no opportunity to recharge. Siyanda was tired. Ze was tired more often than not, and spent a lot of time thinking about how tired ze was, which probably didn’t help. Ze had barely talked to anyone for more than a few minutes at a time since prom. There were final exams to study for and end-of-year projects to turn in, and even when ze did lay down to sleep, ze tossed and turned thinking about the decimal-point difference between zem and the handful of other front-runners in the class that determined who got scholarships and who got half a million dollars in debt when they finally enrolled in college. Zir entire life right now was one big Thursday moment.

Almost the end of the week, almost the end of the school year, almost, almost. Everything fun had come and gone, and it was time to just strap in and struggle through the last few weeks, and ze just couldn’t keep zir fucking eyes open.

Dr. Terrance sounded even less engaged than the class. That was Siyanda’s last coherent thought before zir head dipped forward over the open textbook that ze had been staring at with unfocused eyes.

The next coherent thought ze had was that someone behind zem and slightly to the left was giggling. After that, the realization that someone else was standing in front of zem, and that he was saying zir name, not for the first time.

“Siyanda,” he repeated, sounding faintly exasperated.

Ze snapped awake again and sat bolt upright, meeting Dr. Terrance’s eternally tired gaze with wide eyes. A dark, mortified blush crept up zir cheeks and neck.

“Welcome back,” Dr. Terrance drawled.

“Sorry,” Siyanda mumbled, but he was already turning back to the board and resuming the lesson. Small mercy of the day: that Dr. Terrance wasn’t the kind of teacher who relished in humiliating his students when they slipped out of line. Still, falling asleep right in the front of the classroom where ze always sat was a transgression that even Dr. Terrance couldn’t overlook. Siyanda stared a hole in the pages of zir book once more without really seeing them, resisting the urge to hide zir face in zir hands out of embarrassment.

The rest of the class crawled by in a blur. Anytime Siyanda felt zirself start to drift, ze pinched zir arm under the desk. By the time the bell rang, there was a line of small red marks dotting up zir forearm. Even at the bell, ze was apparently just a tad too sluggish to react. As everyone else rushed to pack their things up and run off to the first lunch or study period, Dr. Terrance called again.

“Siyanda. Can I have a minute?”

There was a muffled snicker. Siyanda didn’t bother looking to try and identify where it came from. Like it had ever mattered. High school was almost over.

Had ze remembered to eat this morning?

“Yeah- yes. Just a second.” Siyanda at least took the time to close zir book and straighten zir notes, but forewent packing everything into zir bag for the moment. Instead ze stood and crossed the front of the classroom to stand by Dr. Terrance’s desk, behind which he’d haphazardly sprawled in his chair.

He didn’t speak right away. Maybe he was trying to find the words, or maybe he was waiting for zem to speak up first. There was an awkward beat of silence before Siyanda decided on the latter and cleared zir throat.

“Sorry,” ze said again. “I was just…”

“A little tired out,” Dr. Terrance offered.

“Yeah- yes.” Siyanda made to cross zir arms, realized that might look sullen, and instead grasped zir left elbow with zir right hand. Close enough to feel comfortable.

Dr. Terrance absently twirled a pencil between his fingers, looking at Siyanda and then at the wall slightly to the side of zem. “You know,” he began, and then seemed to not know how he meant to continue.

Siyanda raised zir eyebrows at him, unsure if ze should urge him on.

“If you’re not feeling well, you can go to the nurse.”

Ze blinked at him, taken aback. “What?”

“The nurse,” Dr. Terrance repeated slowly, as though speaking to someone much younger (or stupider, as the case may be). “There’s a bed in the nurse’s office.”

“I don’t need to go to the nurse’s office,” Siyanda said, more defensively than necessary. “I’m not sick,” ze added.

“Sure, but are you well?”

“I- huh?”

There was another quiet moment – or several quiet moments, going by the steady ticking of the analog clock on the wall that every classroom still had – as Siyanda tried and failed to absorb the question.

“I’m saying that I think you should go to the nurse,” Dr. Terrance said finally. He’d stopped his pencil twirling, and he sounded somewhere between irritated and… some other sentiment that Siyanda wasn’t familiar with him giving off. Maybe an attempt at concern or coddling.

“I’m fine.” Of course ze was fine. Who was he to come out of nowhere and imply that ze wasn’t fine? Ze’d been fine this whole time, all semester, all year. You fall asleep in class once, and suddenly you’re not well? What the hell kind of logic was that?

It was almost Friday. Ze just needed to make it to Friday, and there was nothing to worry about.

Wait, hang on. What was today? It was Thursday, right?

“You look like you’re about to fall over any second now. Go to the nurse’s office and lay down, Mr. Nagi.” There was a note of command in Dr. Terrance’s voice that Siyanda had never heard before, yanking zem back from wherever ze had been staring off into space at, and maybe it was just that this was new and weird enough, and this conversation unnecessary enough, that ze couldn’t take it.

“Don’t call me mister!” Siyanda snapped. There was a burst of righteous anger and indignation for all of a second before ze realized that ze had just raised zir voice at a teacher. “I- fuck.” And then the f-bomb. At a teacher. What was that saying? Batting a thousand?

Dr. Terrance finally deviated from his generally tired and disinterested expression to look slightly taken aback himself, which might have been kind of satisfying in other circumstances. He set the pencil down and rested his hands on the surface of his desk. He flexed his fingers out and then back down. It was a tic of his when he managed to get from irritated with the world to slightly perturbed with one thing in particular. One of those little characteristics that you vaguely take in but don’t really notice day-to-day.

“Siyanda…” He looked troubled. He’d never looked troubled before that ze could remember. Siyanda just looked dully at him as he took a deep breath, resigned to whatever kind of telling-off ze’d earned. Zir throat was tight and zir eyes stung. Must have been from lack of sleep. Maybe he was onto something there after all.

“Is everything okay?”

I’m fine, was what Siyanda opened zir mouth to say again, but what happened instead was that ze burst into tears.

Later – much later – ze would be able to say with just the faintest touch of humor that it was the first and only time ze had ever seen Dr. Terrance look truly out of his depth.

So Siyanda went to the nurse’s office. Zir eyes were embarrassingly red and puffy, and ze was awkwardly accompanied by Dr. Terrance the whole way, but most everyone else was at lunch or in class now so at least there were probably few, if any, witnesses. Dr. Terrance’s hand hovered an inch away from Siyanda’s shoulder the whole time, like he really did think ze was liable to keel over any minute, but he didn’t want to touch zem before that happened. Siyanda was glad that he didn’t go the extra mile on that one.

Nurse Gregor was weird on the best of days, and even though Dr. Terrance wasn’t that kind of doctor, Siyanda would honestly be more inclined to trust in his medical expertise than the school nurse’s. Nonetheless, ze allowed zirself to be herded into the office and directed to lay down on the singular cot in defeat. At least there was the glorified shower curtain around the bed to hide zem from the rest of the world.

Any and all protests went out the window once ze was even vaguely horizontal anyways. By the time Nurse Gregor finished conferring with Dr. Terrance on what exactly had brought zem here and poked his head in to check on zem, Siyanda was asleep.

The feeling of something digging into zir hip woke zem. Siyanda grumbled and rolled over to dig zir phone out of zir pants pocket.

One vague thought floated to the surface of consciousness, and Siyanda cracked zir eyes open to check the date and time.

The good(?) news was that it was Thursday, and ze hadn’t been in here that long. Ze could probably afford to rest a little while longer before being missed, assuming Nurse Gregor hadn’t already passed a note along to zir teachers for the afternoon. It’d be better if ze went to class. Zir bookbag was resting against the wall next to the cot, ze could just grab it and go as soon as ze was ready.

Five more minutes.

The bad news, Siyanda recalled when ze woke for another few minutes at some later point, was that it was Thursday, which meant the senior trip was in two days. God.

Siyanda wanted to go to D.C. D.C. sounded fun. There were lots of things there that ze was interested in, and probably plenty more that ze didn’t even know about yet. Zir parents had already put money down with the understanding that ze was going.

Siyanda was really not sure at this point if ze could stomach going to D.C. if it meant spending an entire week in cramped quarters with most of the senior class. Hadn't been sure about that for a while, actually. There were like… five people ze would want to spend time with, tops, and at least three of those people were off-limits for a portion of the time because the rooms were divided up by gender, and Siyanda probably wasn’t going to get assigned to the girls’ section. Ze didn’t even really want to be in the girls’ section apart from the fact that more people ze liked would be there, but them’s the breaks. The ideal situation, really, would have been to have an entire room to zirself for the week. Also an entire bus to zirself on the way there and back.

God.

Instead of thinking about all of that any longer, Siyanda went back to sleep.

((Siyanda Nagi continued in V7 Meanwhile))