The Dead Pixel Society

© 2026 Zoë Taylor

He barreled through the extremely heavy door without a second thought.

Tuesday morning started with Lewis nearly falling out of bed, sitting bolt upright. It sounded like his roommate, Tony, had just thrown a spoon into a blender. Tony was sitting on his bed, drinking a protein shake, but it was one of those pre-blended ones, not from a mixer, but in a cardboard carton.

Tony gave him a goofy grin and raised the protein shake like a toast. “Morning, dormie,” he said lazily.

“”What the hell was that noise,” Lewis groaned groggily, sweat soaked hair simultaneously both frizzy and still managing to cake itself to his scalp. It wasn’t extremely long, but not short short either, in that in-between phase of ‘Needs a haircut” but not quite long enough to pass for, say, Madison’s dorm mate either. “Ugh it’s hot.”

“No idea to the first. These walls are egg shell thin,” Tony said. “Probably somebody’s electric razor crapping the bed. I asked the floor RA about the heat. He said they’re working on it. HVAC’s got a glitch or something,” he shrugged.

Lewis lay back down for a moment and groaned. “I hate this place.”

“You’ll get used to it,” Tony said, entirely too cheerful for 6:45 in the morning. “Hey, you need anything from town? I’m heading in after classes are over this afternoon.”

“Don’t think they sell lobotomies at the hardware store,” Lewis answered. Tony actually laughed.

“Nah, but I can find you an ice pick,” he shot back, tossing the empty carton into a tall wastebasket next to their mini fridge. The fridge was, at present, mostly filled with bottled water and those nasty fake chocolate protein shakes Tony seemed to love. “Want one?” he asked.

“They’re all yours. Those things always tasted like gargling chalk to me,” he said, feeling a little more bold now that he knew Tony wasn’t just going to deck him over a joke.

“Yeah, they’re an acquired taste. My grandpa always said if you have to acquire a taste you shouldn’t be drinking it, but, they’re full of electrolytes and protein, which is why they taste so bad,” he laughed again.

Lewis just cracked a small smile before finally crawling out of bed and over to his wardrobe to start getting ready for the day. Just four more years. Just four more years.

The school had two options for cafeterias, surprisingly. There was the old, original cafeteria built when the old bunker building was constructed in the 1970s, and then there was the student union, someone’s idea of giving teenagers the ‘cool’ option, complete with franchising mini kitchens for Taco Bell, McDonalds, and Pizza Hut, which served up pizza by the slice 24 hours a day.

Then there were students like Tony who were allowed a minifridge in their dorm for those vile protein shakes. Lewis decided to try and take his chances at the Student Union since yesterday morning’s scrambled eggs really didn’t sit well. At least with McDonalds you knew exactly what fresh Hell you were signing yourself up to endure, or to enjoy, depending on one’s perspective.

He regretted this decision before even getting the door open, as once again the NFC reader decided that it was his lot in life to be the school’s, nay, the universe’s whipping boy. He even tried that thing Madison did, where she just pressed a flat palm against the NFC reader. It beeped, not a rejection, but the school’s equivalent of a “404, soul not found” error. A queue had begun to from behind him because a couple of freshmen were too embarrassed for him, he decided, to actually step up and try the NFC reader themselves.

Finally, a deep baritone voice sighed. “Oh my God, move kid, I’ll do it,” and a senior with shoulders like a defensive lineman, or possibly a professional wrestler, slapped his phone against the reader. It turned green, the door slid open, and both the senior, and the freshmen behind them, passed Lewis by.

It wasn’t much better inside, either, a clattering calamitous wave of talking, laughter, fryers cackling in the mini kitchens, chairs scraping. Everyone seemed absorbed in their own world and yet, every cackle of laughter felt like it was directed straight at Lewis’ back as he got in the McDonald’s line. He clutched the brown paper bag like a shield, turning around to try and find a place to sit and eat.

More than once he thought about bolting back outside. He wove his way past Madison’s table, who of course, was holding court at the center under the functioning AC vent and surrounded by freshmen ready to deliver whatever dismissive decree she bade of them. She didn’t look up, and why should she? He wasn’t even the dirt beneath her flawlessly manicured nails.

He passed the music room girl, in a spirited debate about the finer points of Eb and D down tuning in modern rock music compared to an E standard guitar tuning. Did people really talk like that all the time? Or was it just performative art to be ‘on’ for the student body?

Only one table for two, shoved up against a concrete column at the back of the room sat invitingly open. He made a beeline for it, only to realize why no one else had taken it. The smell hit him immediately. He looked over, and there sat the massive trash can. It didn’t just stink. It smelled like someone had poured month old sour milk and sun fresh mayonnaise into the bin. He sighed.

Perfect. Just. Perfect. He sat down and tried to eat his slightly over toasted sausage egg McMuffin while trying not to think about what that horrible smell was. He didn’t know what was worse, that feeling that everyone was staring, or the realization that no one was.

Lewis definitely didn’t remember signing up for AP Governmental Studies, but it was right there on the schedule, and he couldn’t just change classes, not until next semester. The classroom was divided into 12 seats on one side, 12 on the other, in rows of two, and an upperclassman had taken his usual seat, the one he’d enjoyed in the back, out of sight and out of mind last time.

This left only one seat open, front and center and right in Madison’s line of sight. She still didn’t seem to notice him, as he sat down nervously, sweating from the broken air conditioning even as she sat prim and proper, unaffected by the humidity. She really did have ice water running through her veins, didn’t she? She certainly had that smell about her, a faint, mintiness, sharp like her.

“Sorry about the heat, everyone,” Mrs. Pace said. “Maintenance assures me it’ll be fixed by 10 AM so let’s just suffer through it for now. If you need to get up to use a rehydration station by all means, just get up and go. I don’t want anyone passing out on my floor,” she teased, getting a laugh from a few students. Lewis wasn’t one of them.

He was on Mars again, only now his mind was searching for the space between spaces. He thought about the note, wondered if there were others hidden around. When Mrs. Pace disappeared to the back of the room he reached a hand underneath his desk just to check.

Rather than a note or a hidden carving, his hand found only the petrified DNA of a thousand pieces of gum, and one disgustingly fresh one. He made a sour face and jerked his hand back. Of course, Madison saw that. She rolled her eyes in disgust, looking down at her tablet. And now, on top of being hot, sweaty, sticky with someone else’s fresh ass gum, he was blushing too.

Mrs. Pace reappeared in his field of view, holding a nerf ball. “Let’s try something different today. I’m going to throw this ball of non expanding recreational foam,” pause for laughter, “And if I hit you with it - or if you catch it, you get to answer a trivia question about government.”

She glanced around the room, and then right at Lewis. The ball landed on his desk, right in his field of view. He looked up at her.

"Chambers, define 'meritocracy' in the context of the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause. Are we here because we are equal, or because we are better?"

“Uhm,” Lewis said nervously. “I um... I think we’re just lucky?”

His ears burned as he heard laughter around him, and beneath it, an annoyed sigh, the hiss of a crocodile about to snap her jaws shut on unsuspecting prey. He haphazardly tossed the Nerf ball back to Mrs. Pace. It bounced off her hand and right at Madison, who caught it expertly right out of the air.

“Luck is a variable for those who lack precision, sweetie. We’re here because the data indicates we're the optimal version of the citizenry.” She tossed the nerf ball back to Mrs. Pace with that self same precision that the teacher caught it without any trouble.

“Interesting. Anyone care to counter?”

She tossed the ball to another student.

“Uh, not a rebuttal, but I mean the email I got when I got here said I was in the top 0.5% of whatever a cohort is, so it kinda tracks with what she just said.”

Lewis just wanted to melt into the floor, while Madison just gave a victorious, self-assured smirk - not at Lewis, by any means. He was still the dirt beneath her flawlessly manicured nails, but just to the world in general.

Gross, gross, gross, gross, gross!

For the next 45 minutes Lewis had to sit with someone else’s nasty, disgusting, skin-crawling ugh, their chewed gum spit on his hand Why did people stick their fucking gum under a fucking desk anyway?

The second the bell - not a modern chime, but a literal, 1970s classroom steel bell that Clarity never bothered to upgrade probably because it would break something else if they did, screamed the hour, he bolted. He didn’t wait for a dismissal, or for Madison and her entourage to clear the hell out of his way.

He just. Ran. He knew there were bathrooms somewhere in the next corridor. He swore he would never use a public bathroom if he could avoid it. He even showered at odd hours, like midnight when everyone else was asleep, just to have a modicum of privacy, but this? This was a saliva soaked emergency.

He barreled through the extremely heavy door without a second thought.

Actually, he did have one small, nagging second thought; why was there a mirror with a neon blue counter, like some kind of passthrough room, on the way to the actual bathroom, inside the bathroom? Didn’t bathrooms have mirrors already?

Sure enough, beyond this weird halfway room lay a row of porcelain sinks and, although the stalls were not the traditional toilet stalls he expected - they were made of cinder block walls just like the rest of the school with metal doors attached to them - the sinks did have small, rectangular mirrors over the top of them.

He dove for the nearest sink and turned on the hot water, vigorously scrubbing his hands with the lilac-scented soap. After one wash, he went back for a second scrubbing, just to be absolutely sure.

He didn’t hear the door open next to him, nor the click of girls’ loafers on the tile floor as she walked up to him. He only realized when he heard the paper towel dispenser engage, and saw a mildly amused face, framed by raven hair, smirking at his reflection. She didn’t say a word. She just put the paper towel down beside him and disappeared into one of the stalls.

“Fuck,” he moaned softly, grabbed the paper towel, and ran like his life depended on it because it absolutely did. Twice in two days he had now been given pity from the Queen Bee of mean girls. If he lingered another second he might just throw up in the damned sink.

“I am so sorry,” was all he could get out before pushing back into that weird halfway room - a powder room he now realized, and out into the hall. He needed to get out of here. If anyone else had noticed, they didn’t say anything, most students too preoccupied with their own social standing to care about a red-faced shaggy haired boy running down the hallway.

In his haste he very nearly collided with Director Winters, the de facto president, CEO, superintendent and principal in one - a woman in her mid 30s with her perfect, chestnut brown hair in an immaculate bun. She turned on a stiletto heel to smile at him, ironically being the first genuinely friendly face he’d seen all day.

“E-excuse me, Director Winters,” he managed to mutter. “I wasn’t paying attention.”

“Hey, slow down,” she said cheerfully, not an admonishment about running in the halls to his surprise, but, advice? “You’re going to give yourself a heart attack in this heat. You alright sweetie?”

Lewis gulped air and then nodded. “Yeah. I’m just having the world’s worst week. I’ll be fine.”