Zombie at the Plate

I felt like a straight-up zombie. Three weeks into junior year, and I was running on four hours of sleep, two iced coffees, and pure existential dread. My phone buzzed AGAIN in my back pocket—probably another pointless group chat blowing up about nothing.

'You good, Marcus?' Coach Miller yelled from the dugout. 'You look like you've seen a ghost.'

I didn't even have energy to come up with a witty clapback. Just nodded and adjusted my baseball cap, trying to look like I wasn't about to pass out on home plate. Varsity baseball tryouts were tomorrow, and my dad had been blowing up my iPhone all morning with those 'motivational' texts that just made me want to yeet my phone into a lake. MAKE US PROUD. THIS IS YOUR YEAR. Don't mess this up.

No pressure or anything.

The problem wasn't baseball. I could crush a fastball in my sleep. The problem was everything else. The constant notifications, the AP classes, the college applications looming like a storm cloud, the feeling that everyone else had their life figured out while I was just coasting on autopilot. Even my friends seemed different this year—obsessed with prom dates and TikTok followers and whatever drama was trending that hour.

Sometimes I wondered if anyone else felt like this. Like they were just running through the motions, waiting for something real to happen.

'Marcus! You're up!'

I stepped into the batter's box, the dirt crunching under my cleats. The pitcher wound up, and something clicked. For the first time all day, my phone wasn't buzzing. My dad wasn't watching. The college applications didn't matter. Just me, the bat, and the pitch screaming toward me.

CRACK. The ball soared over the left field fence. Perfect.

As I jogged the bases, my teammates rushing out of the dugout to scream my name, I realized something. Maybe being a zombie wasn't about giving up. Maybe it was about surviving until the moments that made you feel actually, completely alive. And this—this right here—was one of those moments.

My phone buzzed in my pocket. I ignored it and kept running.