Automatic Memories

The iphone lay on the nightstand like a polished obsidian mirror, its screen cycling through photos I'd sworn I deleted three months ago. Sarah's algorithm knew better than I did—knew that at 3 AM, I'd want to see her laughing with that golden retriever we'd found wandering the beach in Oregon, the one we named Lucky even though we both knew dogs don't keep luck, they just borrow it for a while.

She was my best friend, my oldest friend, the kind you make in kindergarten when friendship is just sharing crayons and not asking questions. But adulthood had complicated the geometry of us, stretched and compressed our closeness until it fit strange shapes—sometimes romantic, sometimes not, always intense.

"You're scrolling again," said David from the doorway, his silhouette cutting a sharp line against the hallway light. "I can see the blue light on your face. It looks like you're haunting yourself."

I couldn't explain that I wasn't haunting myself—I was haunting her. That she'd died six months ago and I was just the zombie she'd left behind, moving through the motions of a life that no longer fit quite right. My therapist called it 'prolonged grief disorder,' as if grief were something you could schedule and resolve like a project at work.

"I saw a fox today," I told him instead. "In the backyard. Just standing there, watching me through the glass door. Like it knew something."

David came and sat beside me, and the mattress dipped under his weight. "Sarah used to talk about foxes," he said softly. "How they're the only animals that've adapted to live alongside us without becoming tame. How they're everywhere—in cities, in suburbs—and we barely notice them unless they want to be seen."

I looked at the phone screen, at Sarah's face frozen in mid-laugh, Lucky's golden fur catching the Oregon sun. "I feel like I'm adapting too," I said. "Like I'm learning to live in this world she's not in anymore, and I hate it. I hate that I'm getting better at it."

The phone cycled to another photo: Sarah and me at a Halloween party years ago, both dressed as zombies, fake blood on our faces, our arms draped around each other like parentheses. We'd thought it was funny then—we had no idea that grief would eventually feel exactly like that, like walking around with parts of yourself missing, like learning to move when everything inside you has stopped.

"She wouldn't want you to be a zombie," David said. "She'd want you to be the fox. Wild, adaptable, still yourself even in a changed world."

I turned off the phone and set it face down on the nightstand. Somewhere outside, I thought I heard something—a sharp bark, maybe, or a fox's cry. The dog next door. The world continuing, indifferent and beautiful.