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Sublime Awakenings	By : Kailean Category: Comics > Squee! Views: 1478 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Squee!, JTHM, or Invader Zim, nor any of the characters from these works. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
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Sublime Awakenings: Chapter 4

As he attempted to walk steadily across the hi skool lawn to the glass double doors, forcing lingering tension from last night into the back of his mind, Squee could feel the cool breeze acutely on his skin. He griped his bagged lunch tighter, and felt relived that his skin was no longer a bright, lobster red. He had been unable to sleep for the remainder of the night, and had lay there in bed, staring fearfully at his childhood bear.

When he heard the front door slam, signaling that his father had left for work, he had made strait for the shower. With the heat turned up all the way, he had tried in vain to scrub away the tainted feeling that the nightmare had left him with. He had only stopped when the shower had run out of hot water, after an hour or so. Sure, it had burned, but it had been wroth it to feel just a little cleaner and to replace the memory of the monster holding him and invading his being, if only for a short while.

After making his way through crowded halls full of chatter, flirting, bullying and the inevitable rows of teens seated against the walls trying desperately to copy last night's homework before the bell rang, Squee entered his homeroom: Honors English. He took his assigned set, which was directly in the middle row, two sets from the front. Miss Bitters glared at him from behind her large and imposing desk at the front of the room, as if daring him to question her impending lecture...of doom. Squee quickly opened his notebook and stared down at it, trying hard not to glare back with defiance. He did not need a repeat of the church incident or a reassignment to the underground classroom.

As he went about writing down his most recent nightmare for potential use in one of his many stories, he was shocked by the loud ringing of the skool bell and the tidal wave of his classmates entering at the last possible moment. He couldn't really blame them for wanting to spend as less time with Bitters as possible. As the teens scrambled into their respective seats, Bitters rose from her desk.

“Alright, you pubescent, social leeches, pass your papers on “The Jilting of Granny Weatherall” to the front NOW, because after this moment, I will not except another paper.”

There was a collective rustling of papers being passed up to the front desk of each row, expect for the last row, which was missing the usual occupant of its front desk.

Zim smirked from the opposite side of the classroom as he carefully snatched the papers from the girl behind him with a gloved hand. The feeble Dib-thing was already late for Skool this early in the year, and when their first English assignment was due as well. The pit-if-ful huuman wormbaby really needed to learn to balance his mission with his other responsibilities. Of course, not everyone could be as completely AMAZING as the Almighty ZIM...especially when their mission consisted mostly in trying to stop the Almighty Zim from conquering their planet.

Just as Miss Bitters finished collecting all the papers and retreated behind her desk the classroom door opened very, very, very slowly. In fact, it opened so slowly that it didn't make a sound, thereby not drawing the wrath of the inhuman teacher. As most of his classmates focused their attention on the black board while Bitters scrawled on it in a screechy manner, Dib slipped in unnoticed. He slowly creped toward the teacher's desk, paper in hand, in hopes of improving his grade to something besides a zero.

Zim gave a merrily evil grin. “Hi, Dib! Nice of you to join us!”

Dib's movement came to an abrupt halt at the sound of Zim's shrilly elated greeting. He froze with his paper slipped half way into the pile. The tension mounted as Miss Bitters rotated at a perfect one hundred and eighty degree angle to face the apparent lollygagger, who briefly wondered, not for the first time, which paranormal category she belonged to.

“DIB! You're late! Explain yourself!”

“Sorry, Miss Bitters. I got in an argument on the way to skool.”

There was a collective grasp at the semi-normal excuse followed by an awkward silence. A few of the students who knew him from previous years looked almost scared.

Feeling all eyes upon himself, and hating awkward silences, Dib took it upon himself to elaborate on his excuse. “I was walking down the street when this man hammering on his roof called me a paranoid little freak... In Morse code. I mean, come on! He could have at lest had the decency to say it to my face!”

The silence died and quickly moved into the Great Beyond as the class was suddenly filled with laugher and snide comments about the lack of sanity in Dib's abnormally large head. Dib sighed; situation normal...all fucked up, as usual.

Bitters took a moment to watch Dib go from “rant mode” to “dejected, scornful mode”. It was always nice to watch his spirits be crushed. Even so, it brought the other students too much mirth, and she wasn't prepared to allow that for long. “QUITE!” A pure and blessed silence did the opposite of ring out through the room. “Dib! Your excuse is pathetic, just like your doomed existence! Now, take a set, you paranoid little freak!”

“Yes, ma'am.” Dib said in a forced, melancholy tone. As he sat, he shot a glare toward the alien to his far right. The alien glared back with that ever present smirk, because like everything else, this was another small “victory for ZIM!”. Dib turned to gaze out the window, and hide a secret smile. His “pathetic excuse” had actually distracted Miss Bitters from noticing him drop his paper into the middle of the pile. If he was really lucky, she would forget about his tardiness and grade it. Let Zim have his hollow little victory if it made him so damn happy. The last five years had been full of small victories for Zim, but no large ones.

His mini-celebration was interrupted when the back of his perfectly normal sized head was smacked with a paper ball, which then fell to his desk. He didn't even have to look up to know who it was from. He lowered the paper ball to his lap, where it was hidden by his desk, and unballed it.

Dib-stink,

The window is reflective. Why are you so happy?

P.S. The man on the roof was right.

There was a light thud as Dib's head hit his desk. Stupid, shinny, clean windows. That was one of the unique experiences of Hi Skool: everything was clean and so cheerily bright it was almost sickening. Actually, that wasn't so much a property of hi skool as it was a result of Mr. Eliot being promoted to principal of said hi skool. At least Zim seemed to be the only one to notice his reflection. He turned the paper over and wrote a message before hurling it back across the room. He snickered to himself, knowing the reaction it would cause.

Space-GIRL,

I'm always happy when pretty girls greet me so enthusiastically.

P.S. How many guys have asked you out so far this year?

Miss Bitters's voice could be heard in the background, but both Zim and Dib were too preoccupied to pay attention. “Now turn to page two hundred and twenty-five. Look at the poem 'Nothing Gold Can Stay' by Robert Frost. Can anyone tell me what this poem is about?” She droned. Her eyes spanned the class, ignoring raised hands, especially Todd's. She was looking for victims.

Zim's lavender, contact covered eyes narrowed at the filthy words the Dib had written. How dare the beast remind him of such disgusting things! He had finally broken down and taken to wearing mostly human clothes in public after the tenth male pig-smelly had attempted to court him Freshman year, under the mistaken impression that he was female. His outfits were still similar to his Invader uniform, consisting mostly of black and red, but less of what those filthy huumans considered to be ... “feminine”.

Of course, it was degrading to someone as amazing as Zim to wear such inferior clothes. Even so, it was worth it, as his second objective in his social interactions with humans, remaining relatively free of their filthy germs, was better fulfilled. Huuman males were now much less likely to “ask him out” or “in” as the situation had sometimes been...besides that horrible Keef. At first he had worried that after the wardrobe change the females would pick up were the males left off, but their reaction had, luckily, been pretty minimal. He had retained his Empire-issued gloves and boots.

He was in the middle of scrawling down a witty and superior comeback when Miss Bitters finally managed to catch his attention. She was quite irked that he and Dib had manged to ignore her lecture for a good twenty minutes.

“ZIM!”

He immediately sprung to full alert. “Sir!?”

“'Nothing Gold Can Stay'; what's it about?”

“Ummm...pirates?” He gave her a big affirming smile. His classmates giggled.

“WRONG ANSWER! Perhaps you would better understand the poem, and therefore that all is DOOM, if you actually opened your book to look at the poem!”

“Yes, Miss Bitters!”

Her head slowly turned to the other side of the room, where a slightly panicked Dib was hurriedly flipping through his book to find the poem. Too late. “DIB! Would you care to explain the poem to the class?”

“Uh, sure. The poem is about, uh, doom?” He muttered unsurely.

“While correct, that answer is incredibly, and I suspect purposefully, vague. Maybe if you peeled your eyes away from your freakish, little girlfriend long enough to read the assignment you would have a less pathetic answer!”

Girlfriend? What was she..oh God, surely she didn't mean Zim! Beneath the teacher's sadistic leer, Dib slouched in his desk in an attempt to sink right through it, or at least be less noticeable. The heat he felt in his face told him that he was probably a bright pink by now. If he just kept quite maybe no one would know who she was talking about.

Zim, on the other hand, was having none of it. He quickly rose to his feet in his chair and raised his voice in order to attract as much attention as possible. “You dare call ZIM, the perfectly normal, MALE, huuman wormbaby, a girl!!”

Zim, of course, being Irken, was not terribly offended at being called female. Male and female Irkens were perfectly equal within the Empire, even though females were somewhat rare. Still, if he wanted to blend in with the Earth scum, he knew he would have to act as any normal human male would at such an accusation. Plus, he really didn't want any more huuman teenagers confused about his gender...it only lead to situations that made him make little, sicky noises.

“Further more, I am NOT “going out” with the Dib! He was simpling observing my greatness, as should you all!”

If it was possible, Dib turned an even darker red. He pulled the collar of his trench coat put to partly hide his face. He could always count on Zim to make a bad situation worse, even by accident. Behind him he heard whispered speculation about his “observing Zim's greatness” as well as a few dirty jokes.

Miss Bitters looked quite pleased with her through embarrassment of the two boys, but alas, she was waisting valuable class time that could better be spent making sure all those little Earth-monsters knew how utterly pointless, and without hope, their existence was. Back to the lecture. “SILENCE! Zita. Read the poem out loud to the class, please.”

Zita stifled her giggling, coughed twice and took a deep breath. It was just too funny to watch the two most insane people she knew carry on with such obvious denial.

“Ahem.
Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay. “

“ Very good Zita. Now, can you tell me what it's about?”

“Uh, I think it's about how things start out really good, but none of the good things in life last. Like, the early green is gold means that the beginning of life is good, but then you get old and die. The last line really says it all. Nothing gold can stay.”

“Excellent. You get an A+. You see, children, the lesson here is that life is a black, sucking, vortex of anguish and despair, filled with brief moments of false hope and empty joy, all the while dragging you inevitably closer to final, absolute and eternal death.”

Todd's left eye began to twitch sporadicly at the horribly oversimplified and, oh hell, just plain wrong interpretation they had just been spoon feed. His hand shot back into the air before he could stop it.

“What is it now, Todd?” Bitters asked mechanically.

“That was a terrible interpretation of the poem! I mean, first of all, in New England, where Frost was from, the first leaves of the birch and the willow really were gold. The gold was fleeting because the leaves needed to mature and become green. In the poem, gold becomes green and what appears to be a flower reveals itself to really be a leaf. There is some implied sentimental loss when this happens, but the thing which becomes its true self undergoes only a seeming fall. The subsiding is a fall, which is a rise into a new value. It is with this movement of paradox that Frost arrives at the final term of his argument, developing a parallel between acts within nature and acts within myth.

'So Eden sank to grief' in the same way that gold turned to green and flower subsided to leaf. By analogy, the third term in the poem takes on the character of the first two; gold is green; flower is leaf; Eden is grief. In every case the second element is really a value, a part of the natural process by which the cycle of fuller life is completed. The change is actually meant to be interpreted as a shift to good. The most telling line in the poem is "So dawn goes down to day." Obviously, dawn doesn't “go down”, but come up. It's basically the story of the blessed fall.”

The entire class stared, stupefied. Squee knew he was well on his way to once again becoming an outcast, but it really didn't bother him. Just because it was in style with his generation to embrace apathy and scorn anything that required rejecting it, like knowledge, didn't mean he was going to join them. Even if life wasn't so great, he could still enjoy some things. He could still feel and think. Even if they were all in the gutter, some of them, himself included, were still looking up at the stars.

Needless to say, Miss Bitters was very disgruntled at Todd's lack of faith in her interpretation of doom. Didn't he know that everything, or at least everything worth knowing as far as humanity was concerned, was about doom? How dare he think out of term like that! If it wasn't her priority assignment to watch the little brat, she would send him strait to the underground classroom! That would drive him mad, and he would end up back in the mental hospital, where he surely belonged. That, however, would be pointless. She would probably be transferred there to make sure things went as planned. Even if she wasn't, she would have shown weakness in her lack of patience and ability to complete a very important mission. She would just have to suck it up, for now.

“Todd, you will keep your unorthodox opinions to yourself, unless you would like a reassignment to another classroom...one...not so close to the ground. They have no place in the public education system. Do you understand me?”

“Yes, Miss Bitters.” He said dully. What was said was said, after all, and her reaction hadn't been as bad as expected. He really did need to gain more self-control, though.

“Right. Class, in light of todays lesson, I am assigning you all term papers that will be due by the middle of the term. The topic will be about any subject that you want, but you must relate it back to 'Nothing Gold Can Stay' and its message of impending doom.”

The class groaned. Zim snapped to attention, staring at Miss Bitters with suspicious apprehension. Had she just said “Impending Doom”?! Did she know? Would she tell the Earth authorities? Was she on their side? Was she even human? He didn't think so. But what did this mean for the Earth and his “oh-so-glorious mission”?

“Since we have about twenty minutes of class time left, we are all going to the library so that you can start researching your topics. I expect you all to have at least chosen one by this time next week. We go now!”

The class rose and followed their spooky teacher through the merry, yellow halls. It looked like someone had let Keef take charge of the interior decorating. Dib and Squee hung near the back of the group. Dib shuddered at the memory of finding Keef in his newly redecorated room a few years back.

Zim purposefully let himself fall behind. He needed to find out what the Dib-thing knew about Miss Bitters. The Dib, however, seemed to be avoiding him. First, he had moved to the opposite side of the hall as Zim. Then, when Zim crossed over, he had practically stopped walking so that he was even further from the group.

Zim smirked. Perhaps he had finally realized what a mighty and superior being Zim was, and was either in too much fear or awe to be directly in his presence. Shh. Who was he kidding? That wasn't like the Dib-beast at all, and he reluctantly admitted that a part of him was glad. Probably, he was just being a “whinny bitch”, as human teenagers sometimes called him, again. That had been happening seemingly randomly for a few years now. Zim figured that it was part of human development, because it seemed to happen to most of their classmates as well. He had momentarily considered it as a weakness to be exploited, but decided against it, as it was too unpredictable.

Looking ahead, away from the Dib, Zim noticed that they were now pretty far behind the rest of their class, which could be construed as skipping. He really couldn't afford another detention right now. He needed to start his research on Bitters ASAP. Plus, it was never a good idea to leave his minions unsupervised for longer than he had to. Every time, they seemed to find some kind of new and terrible mischief to get into. He would have to speak with the Dib later. That decided, he looked back to give the apparently emotionally unstable wormbaby a shrug, followed by a small smile. Maybe that would help him get over whatever petty issue he was upset over, so that by next period he would be willing to supply Zim with some needed answers.

“Dib, come on! We have to go to be library. You know how Miss Bitters is. We're gonna get detention in the first week of skool. She's already mad at us.” Squee pleaded.

“I can't. He's waiting for me.”

“So?”

“He's up to something. I can tell. Why is he looking at me like that? He looks contemplative. That can't be good.” Dib said cautiously.

“Maybe he's wondering why you're standing in the middle of the hall instead of following Bitters? I mean, if your going to skip, at least do it properly.”

Dib's eyes widened as Zim gave him a non-evil smile before turning to follow the rest of the class. “What...was that?”

Maybe Zim was trying to lull him into a false sense of security? Nah, probably not. He hadn't really thought about it, mostly because he'd been trying not to, but he and Space-boy had been giving each other more strange little tokens of affection lately. That was somewhat unnerving. Traditionally, those little slip ups had only taken place during their epic battles (meaning arguments, competitions and the struggle over the planet, as they rarely had one-on-one physical fights...just little harmless skirmishes).

For his last birthday, Zim had even gotten him a present that didn't blow up: a 3D holographic projector of the galaxy that included a control so that he could manipulate the data to have the effect of moving through space. It apparently contained accurate time, rotation, and even weather models of what Irkens knew about his galaxy, which was a lot. That was scary, but also amazing. He was still confused about Zim's motives for giving it to him. Of course, he had undoubtedly been subtly (for once) asserting Irken superiority, but the nature of the gift was very well suited to Dib. Maybe, somewhere in his strange alien heart, Zim actually felt sorry for him because he was stuck here.

Dib gave a small half smile before resuming his walk to the library, much to the relief of the worried Squee.

----------------------------------------End Chapter Four-------------------------------------------

Since this is my first fanfiction, I am really excited about getting to break some of the rules of regular fiction. I really like quotes, so I've decided to attribute some to various characters in the fic. I will be citing these as best as I can in the end notes.

Quotes in this chapter:

-Dib's elaboration of why he was late is a quote by Emo Phillips.
-Miss Bitters's elaboration of Zita's interpretation of the poem is a paraphrase of a quote I stumbled upon, but it wasn't attributed to anyone.
-Squee's interpretation of the poem is a paraphrase of Alfred R. Ferguson's interpretation.
-Squee's thought about being in the gutter, but looking up at the stars is a paraphrase of a quote from Lady Windermere's Fan by Oscar Wilde.

Squee and Invader Zim characters belong to Jhonen Vasquez
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Sublime Awakenings