The Day I Unzombified

I'd been mainlining my **iphone** like it was oxygen, doomscrolling through everyone else's highlight reel while my life felt like a blooper reel. My mom, in her infinite wellness wisdom, started leaving those gummy **vitamin** supplements everywhere—on my nightstand, in my backpack, literally between my face and the screen.

"You're literally **zombie** walking through life," Maya told me at lunch. "You haven't even noticed that Tyler's been flirting with you for like, three weeks."

I blinked. Tyler? The guy whose locker was next to mine? The one I'd been literally next to while staring at my phone?

That afternoon, instead of going home to my usual routine of dissociating in my room, Maya dragged me to **padel** practice. "You need this," she said. "Trust."

Padel was weird—a tennis-squash hybrid with walls and neon balls and way too much cardio. But somewhere between missing every shot and laughing so hard my stomach hurt, I noticed something moving near the court fence.

A **fox**. Actual orange-furred, pointy-eared, fox. It stood there watching us, head tilted, like it was judging our terrible technique.

"Bro, did you see that fox?" I asked, forgetting I hadn't spoken a full sentence without checking my phone in days.

"Yeah, it comes here sometimes," Maya said, grinning. "Last week you were too busy to notice."

Something clicked. Or maybe it was just the vitamins finally kicking in. But that fox, just vibing in its foxness without caring about likes or follows or whatever, made me realize I'd been living on autopilot.

"Tyler's having a party Friday," I said, surprising myself. "We should go."

Maya's face lit up. "Finally she lives!"

I left my phone in my bag that afternoon. For two whole hours, I was just there—sweaty, terrible at padel, but actually present. The fox watched us leave, and I swear it nodded approvingly.

Progress, not perfection, right?