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Zandik has one true friend in this world.
He met him on the first day of college, when he found himself scoring the medical department for somewhere to eat his lunch. The older medical students didn’t like him very much, though he now knows it has more to do with their superiority complexes and less about him. But he is very off-putting to some people.
Anyway, he found himself a nice dark room to eat his extra-rare burger from the greasy joint off campus and listen to Panic At The Disco. But when he turned the light on, he discovered that he wasn’t alone. The university’s lone cadaver was resting on a table, wearing nothing but a white loincloth, his dead eyes staring up at the ceiling, and Zandik immediately knew he’d met a kindred spirit.
The dead body on the table didn’t stop him from taking a seat and tearing through his burger like there was no tomorrow. He was licking the blood from his fingers when he decided that his new buddy needed a name, and since he couldn’t be bothered to go down the hall and ask someone, he decided to name him Hester. Hester is the name of his favorite lab rat back in highschool. Unfortunately, Hester the rat had a tragic demise at the hand of a cat that Zandik may or may not have let into the school.
He struck up a one-sided conversation with Hester the cadaver, and to this day (a grand total of three months later) they’re the tightest of pals.
It’s great having a friend that never talks about themself.
* * *
“I got an F,” he laments, resting his feet on Hester’s metal table. “I studied, and studied, and studied my ass off, and I still get an F because I wrote that some patients deserve to die.”
His teacher commented that while his answers were factually correct, they were quite troubling and a bit sociopathic, so she slapped an F on his paper and told him to seek mental help. So of course he immediately ran to Hester hoping for some council.
“I even made sure I spelled everything correctly,” he whines. He has a problem spelling things the way he thinks they’re spelled, regardless of how they actually are, and his professors hate it. They’ve suggested things like autocorrect and AI writing things that do spell-checking, but he still prefers the way he does it. All his papers end up having that authentic Zandik touch. He’s not an idiot by any means, but he’s just too lazy to take an extra five seconds to make sure something is spelled right. And all that matters is that they know what he’s trying to say, right?
Hester doesn’t say anything, which Zandik takes as agreement. “I know, man. It’s fucking stupid.”
One of the older medical students hurries in and slams a textbook on the table against the wall. “Get out of here, you necrophiliac. I’ve got actual work to do.”
“I take offense,” Zandik says, gathering his backpack. “See ya, Hester.”
* * *
“I met a guy,” he says dreamily, staring at the ugly beige wall. “He’s got this beautiful hair, and I want to pull on it. Is that normal? And his smile…it’s so insincere and fake, and I just want him to look at me like that.”
Hester doesn’t say anything, because hey, he’s dead.
“I need advice,” Zandik says, resting his chin on his bent knees. “What should I do? Give him flowers? Give him a medical model from the library? There’s a really nice cross-section of the heart that I think he’d like. That’s kind of romantic, isn’t it? Is it okay to be giving him body parts on the first date?”
Silence answers him.
“Yeah, you’re right, Hester. Too soon. I’ll ask him out for burgers first.” Zandik gets up and fist-bumps Hester’s rigor-mortis infused knuckles, ignoring the unnatural crack that echoes in the lab room. “See you later, man.”
* * *
His crush turns down his offer of bloody burgers and a movie. Zandik can’t understand what he did wrong. Was it the fact that the movie was Jaws ? Isn’t that an awesome date movie?
He one-hundred percent blames Hester for not giving him better advice.
Next time, I’m giving him the heart, he decides.
* * *
The day he discovers that Hester is gone is the worst day of his admittedly short life. He arrives in the dissecting room to find Hester’s table empty, and he freaks out. Who wouldn’t lose it if they discover that their best friend is suddenly gone?
The Dean of the Medical Department doesn’t share the same sentiment. She kicks his ass out of her office and tells him to go to therapy. Why is everyone telling him he needs therapy? He doesn't need no dumbass shrink to tell him he’s messed up.
He finds himself drawing Hester in his notebook, scribbling over his notes during quiet hours later in the dorms. He draws the bony lines of Hester’s jaw, remembering the fun times they had together.
“The femur’s connected to the mandible,” he sings sadly.
A student on the other side of the room throws up his hands and yells, “No, it isn’t, you moron!”
“Who are you callin’ moron?” Zandik demands, closing his notebook on Hester’s bug-eyed face and rising to his feet. “Come back here, you little shit, and I’ll punch your lights out.”
He ends up getting in trouble when the RA, Neuvilette, finds him trying to shove the stupid student’s head in the toilets down the hall. He gets grounded, or the college equivalent of grounded, at least. No common room activities for a month. It’s not like he cares, anyway. Without Hester, life is bleak. He doesn’t even find enjoyment in his usual activities, like terrorizing the senior girls in the medical department by popping up in the dark whenever they do that stupid “Bloody Mary” thing. He can never understand why they don’t appreciate his effort.
He knows he’s depressed when he finds himself eating a salad in the dining hall. A fucking salad. Something needs to be done, but he doesn’t know what.
* * *
“You’re pathetic,” Arlecchino says.
She’s a student in the same year as him, majoring in early childhood education. She’s also a major bitch. Zandik kind of likes her.
“Am not,” he says, dropping a two-ton medical text on her foot. “Get out of my room.”
“Are too,” she says, kicking him in the shin. “You need to get some real friends.”
“I have you,” he says. “And the little monsters in my head.”
“Fucking dumbass,” she says, sounding disgusted.
“Friends are overrated,” he tells her, dropping a bag of something bloody on her lap. He can’t remember what’s inside. It’s probably one of the small dissected animals he stole from the biology lab after beheading it at three a.m. in the morning.
She leaves his room, taking the bloody bag with her. From the screams echoing down the hall, he’s pretty sure it’s ended up in someone’s bed.
* * *
Somehow, Zandik comes to realize that he does have friends. Real, living, breathing ones. There’s Arlecchino, and Childe, who’s nearly as messed up as he is. He’s the one who introduces Zandik to Taylor Swift. And then there’s Scaramouche, who bitches and moans about how stupid everyone else is but hangs out with them regardless.
He still misses Hester, but live people give better bad advice.
And they’re much more fun to poke with sharp metal objects.