Archaeology of Thursday

Forty-seven years old and constructing a pyramid of antidepressants on the kitchen counter. Orange bottles at the base, white ones rising to a precarious apex. Architectural precision born of boredom and the particular clarity that comes when you've forgotten to take your medication for three consecutive days.

Barnaby—the dog, not the ex—watched from his bed by the refrigerator, head on paws, eyes following my movements with that unnerving judgment only golden retrievers possess. He knew. They always know.

I'd bought spinach. Fresh, organic, expensive spinach that promised renewal or digestive regularity or whatever the marketing claimed. The bag sat unopened beside the pill pyramid, wilting slightly in the fluorescent kitchen light. At forty-seven, you don't buy spinach because you want it. You buy it because you're negotiating with mortality.

My phone buzzed. A work notification. The corporate pyramid—less literal, more insidious—demanding my presence at tomorrow's quarterly review. Another layer to add to the structure: middle management at a subsidiary of a holding company, neither terrible nor meaningful, just adequate. Like my marriage. Like my recent embrace of running, which consisted mostly of buying expensive shoes and thinking about how healthy I was becoming.

I peeled an orange. The scent hit me—sharp, bright, aggressively cheerful. Citital optimism against fluorescent depression. Barnaby lifted his head, nose twitching.

"You want some?" I asked. "It's good for you. Vitamin C. Antioxidants. We could be healthy together."

He thumped his tail once, lowered his head back to his paws. A diplomat's non-response.

The first section of orange was perfect. The second had started to dry where the peel had been too aggressive. The third was mostly pith. That's the thing about oranges—there's always pith. Always some bitterness you have to chew through to get to what you're actually after.

I swallowed the pills. All of them. Dismantled the pyramid with a sweep of my hand, caught the orange before it could join the collapse. Fed Barnaby a section. He ate it delicately, no judgment anymore, just the transaction of giving and taking between creatures who would both rather be sleeping.

"Tomorrow," I said aloud. The word hung in the kitchen's silence. Tomorrow, I would eat the spinach. Tomorrow, I would go to work. Tomorrow, I would call my mother. Tonight: Barnaby and I and the taste of oranges, the ruins of a pharmaceutical pyramid, and the quiet understanding that some foundations are meant to crumble.