2.
Zombie Land
“Sorry. Not all of us
are as lucky as you. My dad didn’t pass
me down a barely used Subaru. I worked hard for my rust-bucket, as you call it,
and it suits me just fine.” Chase
sounded a little defensive. I wasn’t
trying to be insensitive or brag. I know
that I was lucky that my father gave me the car, but he didn’t give it to me
because I was special; he seriously never used it.
Since I became old enough to drive,
he quit driving almost all together.
Well, until he got his electric car.
There isn’t anywhere he goes that doesn’t have a port for him to charge
his car. He loves rubbing in gas prices
with me. “So Luc, what did it cost you
this week to fill up The Subaru?” No
matter what cost I tell him, he always replies, “Ha, isn’t that something? I
haven’t been to a gas station in months!”
Sometimes, I wish my mother would have taken his car, so she could deal
with his banter. I would have loved to have her Beetle.
It was nothing
personal about Chases’ car, sure it was fun to pick on, but really I just
wanted to take my car because mine has AC.
“Hey Chase, get
it right. It’s not a Subaru it is The
Subaru.” It was a joke between us. My father would always refer to the car as
if it were a name of a fierce wrestler.
“Hey Dad, can I take your car to the movies?” “You can take The Subaru
anywhere if you are back by curfew.”
“Let’s be
honest, The Subaru comes with one feature your ride doesn’t—AC. Unless, you want to go to the ball looking
like you just ran ten miles in your Tux, with a date that you peeled of the
concrete, I suggest we take the Ru. But,
hey, it’s your call.” I teased.
It was so easy
to make Chase laugh. After we laughed at
my dad, it was easy to finish our plans for the ball tomorrow. We agreed that he would drive to my house by
5:30, so we could take pictures with my parents, then he would leave his
rust-bucket, oops—I mean car, at my house.
He would drive my car to his parent’s house to continue our model
session then to the ball.
We had a bet
wagering on who would be the first to want to leave. He bet I wouldn’t make it to see Andrew and
Claire be crowned. I bet he wouldn’t
make it past two songs with my awesome dance moves. I foresaw a faked injury on his behalf.
I hadn’t thought
of them until he mentioned their names. After
he mentioned them, my eyes scanned over the zombie infected lunch room. I was surprised so many of them were here
today, even considering the juniors that were in attendance.
I was so
grateful to have Chase, especially when I came into the lunchroom, or when I
was walking out into the parking lot after school. When I was alone, I felt like I was trapped
in another dimension.
Looking around the room, not one
person was eating. I wasn’t either at
the moment, because I just finished eating my salad. Chase was picking at some fries, but everyone
else still had trays filled with food.
Besides the movement of hands
taping on their gadgets the cafeteria was still. Everyone was on their gadgets; phones,
tablets, computers, or whatever device that held their fixations. I was so out of the loop for my age. I bet out of the majority of the lunchroom
90% of them were on Caption-It.
Caption-it is the way my
generation socializes with each other. They
basically put every trendy social-media app from the generation before
together; changed chats to sticky-notes and utilized the front-facing camera.
It is addicting because whatever
someone post you can add cartoons to caption their words, or if they post a
picture or video you can caption the image.
The Caption-it plague hit my
school so fast we were given a conference week off. The administration had to evaluate the
situation and make adjustments to the school policies and rules. It was such a spectacle, I heard Mr. Volte showed
up in person to our academy.
The week we returned to school we
all were given new handbooks with a special section dedicated to Caption-it and
other internet mingling.
We are only allowed to use our
phones and or gadgets on a lunch hour and in the parking lot. The following week teachers and staff members
began sending us caricature request on Caption-it.
I had an account once, before my
parent’s got accounts, but I deleted it once I saw how socially handicapped it
truly was. The only fun I had on
Caption-it was with Chase. We use to
have a ball captioning our photos.
Otherwise, it
was a gossipy, attention-needy, socially discriminating internet wormhole. I deleted my account in the beginning of
sophomore year. That is when my
relationship with Claire changed. It
wasn’t just with her. It was with most
people I used to actually have face-to-face conversations with.
They took it so
personally if they lost one caricature on their comic strip. I hadn’t realized at the time that if we
weren’t Caption-it friends, then we weren’t real life friends either.
I looked over
at the table Chase and I use to sit at.
It looked as if they were playing musical chairs, but they were all
taking turns taking pics of themselves with their ‘besties’. I could imagine them uploading their pics to
Caption-it with titles like, ‘Me and so-and-so eating lunch last day of senior
year.’
Okay, they
probably were writing things more clever, but it was so annoying. Instead of genuinely having an experience on
their last day, they were staging moments in their life to post.
Claire jumped
on Andrew’s lap and took a pic of them.
Of course she took the picture, because once she got her own camera
phone, she wouldn’t let anyone take a picture of her or with her unless she did
her own ‘selfie.’ She was convinced
nobody knew how to proper take her picture but herself.
My belly ached
imagining what the post of her and Andrew captioned. I didn’t wish that it was me per say, but I
thought she was lucky to be able to take pics with him in the first place.
“Ah…there it
is,” Chase mused.
“There what
is?”
“I was going to
ask when exactly you lost your count when I saw you two talking at study
hall. But I figured you would yak my ear
off about it. You haven’t said anything. But, I know.”
“Yeah. You do know.
I also know how much you love to aggravate me with Andrew teases. I figured
you would have asked me about it, while flattening my ego or something. I wouldn’t want to take that fun from
you. Besides, you distracted me with all
that prom talk. All that talking about
you in a tux, well…”
He threw a fry
at my head. “Oh no! That was close, luckily it didn’t poke your
eye out. How else would you stare at
them? You call them zombies, but you
should see the way you ogle at him.”
“I lost my
count at thirty days, but I guess it shouldn’t take me too long to get it
back. Considering, in a couple days I
plan on never seeing Him or Claire again.
I was staring at them thinking at first, how we use to sit there with
those zombies. Then, I wondered what
Claire posted about her selfie with Andrew.
Jealousy maybe. And finally, I
wondered if she was sitting right next to him messaging him about our
disagreement today.”
Chase wanted
the dirt about our disagreement, so I told him.
He thought it was lame and I was a stupid girl at the end of my
story. He assumed it was going to be a
real catfight. “You did it all wrong
Lucy. She is selfish and you know
that. The only reason why she cares that
you didn’t tell Mr. Montgomery is because you not going this fall screws
her. She can careless about your
future. She just wanted to sponge off
you as a roommate.” All I could do was
laugh, because he was right.
He pulled out
his phone and began tapping around like the zombie-heads. “The title of her post is: My love and I
getting ready to start a new chapter in our lives. Do you want to see the pic?” I threw more fries at him then he hit me
with.
“You know Luc,
you are right. Can you believe we use to
sit there with them? Okay, you can
believe it, because we did. But, what
were we thinking? I can’t wait for Arizona.”
I knew what he
was really saying. He was really saying
that he can’t believe that he dated Courtney.
But, I wasn’t going to dig that burn any deeper, “Either can I Chase. That is why I am following you there buddy!”
The rest of the
day flew by. I didn’t feel that my math
test went as bad as I dreaded, so I was pleased. When Chase and I walked down the stairs into
the parking lot we both gave each other a high five, “Way to go Buddy. “ I pushed Chase to the side off the sidewalk,
because the zombie-heads were coming drone into their gadgets.
They never paid
attention to where they were going, but somehow still managed to move as a
crowd. Ironically, we were standing next
to an old sign that read: DON’T TEXT AND DRIVE.
I laughed at it and pointed, “They should update this thing to say:
DANGER. DON’T TEXT AND WALK.” I caught Chase by surprise when I asked him
to pull out his phone and take a pic of us by it, for memory sake. “Really?
Lucille not only wants to participate in a selfie, she encouraged
it.”
“Who else is
going to take it? It isn’t like anyone will
pay attention to us now.” But after I said it, I saw Mr. Montgomery. I called out to him and he took our picture. Chase uploaded it to Caption-it being
sarcastic. “Does this mean you are going
to return to Caption-it to stalk Andrew, oops I mean, to see our picture?”
“Ha-ha,
funny. Not a chance. Email me it though.” Chase gave me a hug and left me to fight the
zombies alone. All this time I thought
he was walking me to me car, when really he was just leaving too. He had my front row spot and left me
stranded.
While walking
to Ru, I noticed that many people sat on the hoods of their cars to continue to
text, or message. I hadn’t noticed that
in a while. It is the only new change in
our society that I completely, wholeheartedly agree with. And, we all have Mr. Volte to thank for
it.
Although it was
a major problem, texting and driving before Mr. Volte lost a close family
member, little effect or change was happing to prevent it. Then, when he lost someone close he helped
develop a device to prevent texting and driving. Once the device is installed into your car,
it won’t allow you to start your vehicle until your phone is connected to
it.
It
automatically works as a hands free phone.
These days hardly anyone actually speaks on the phone personally, unless
it is an emergency. I always just leave
my phone plugged into it. I actually had to upgrade my phone to be compatible
with the device. Because, it is now a
law for all minor drivers to have it installed before we get our license. We have to register our cars, Safe Drive
device and our phones with the DMV.
Like all things
that have a positive, if you look closer into it you can find negative. That was always the case with all these new
updates and new rules to our new more up-to-date society. The majority of the kids I knew hated the Safe
Drive device.
It wasn’t long
before people started making apps and new phones that had a hands free
text. So technically, there was still
texting and driving. People just said
aloud what they wanted to text and the phone would do it for them.
Many people
would believe that was a win-win solution, but it isn’t. There are still accidents from people getting
so frustrated with the voice processor.
These voice processors often confuse words and sentiment. The sentiment of meaning is what drives me
the craziest with all technology. It is
so hard to be sure of one’s meaning over text.
I felt a little
numb or off when I got to my car. The
whole day felt so off though, starting with waking up. Normally, when I got to my car after school I
immediately occupied my mind with busy work, anything to not think of
Andrew. But today I had nothing to
occupy my mind, because I had no more homework or studying.
I took off this
week at work, so I wasn’t going to be going there anytime soon. I thought about tomorrow and the ball. But, I made my dress months ago and my mom
bought me all the accessories to match at her last art fair.
I looked at the
radio and almost considered it, but my gut reacted in warning. I haven’t listened to music in so long. I
genuinely missed it, but I had to take a break from music because every song
seemed to be singing my song. Rather it
be a sloppy love song, or a miss you so much my heart can barely take it, or a
hey will you notice me and my pure jealousy song; whatever the song, it always
reminded me of Andrew somehow.
Even though I
wasn’t in a hurry to leave, I started my car and put on my seatbelt. I looked over at my phone sitting in its
device. It was blinking, I decided to
listen to see what I missed. I pressed
the hands free button on my radio and turned up the speakers. “Hello Lucille, you have five missed calls
and three missed text. What would you
like to address first?”
I felt utterly
stupid as I talked out loud to myself, “Calls.”
“Five missed calls from your contact Mom and no voicemails.” Grunting to myself, I wondered if I should be
worried. While feeling guilty for
wondering if I should worry in the first place.
But, knowing my mom it was probably something silly.
I then prompted
to seek out who text me, I received two text from Claire and one from my mom. Again, I struggled with the feeling of guilt
and or the lack of. Who do I want to
know first? Okay, Mom I’ll bite, “Read
text from Mom.” “Where are you? Are you coming home or not?” Annoyed I asked for Claire’s text, “Luc I
don’t know who you are anymore. You were
rude and I think you should apologize. I
have a life without being selfish.” I
felt so bad hearing her first text as the next one went on, from lunch time,
“Last day of school and you rather sit with Chase alone then with me and
everybody, whatever.”
What? I was confused because I haven’t sat with
them at lunch all year! I prompted my
phone to text my mom, “I just got out of school, on my way home. See you in
thirty minutes.”