Bear Witness

Elena pressed her forehead against the cold glass of her twentieth-floor apartment, watching him across the street. She'd become a spy in her own life, tracking David's movements through the window of what used to be their bedroom. He was moving boxes now—his clothes, the books they'd bought together, the life they'd built unravelling before her eyes.

She felt like a zombie, moving through her days on autopilot. The previous six months had been a blur of office politics and endless meetings, her soul eroding under fluorescent lights. She'd borne the weight of their failing marriage alone, convinced that if she just worked harder, loved better, everything would fix itself. Instead, David had simply... stopped trying.

The water pipe in the bathroom burst at 3 AM, flooding the apartment in a slow-motion disaster. Elena stood in the hallway, watching dirty water seep under the door, and felt nothing. That was when she knew: she couldn't bear this anymore.

The cable technician arrived at noon. "You're the third one this week," he said, crawling under her desk to reconnect the internet. His voice was kind, and Elena found herself telling him everything—about David, about the corporate spy job that paid well but required selling pieces of her soul, about the zombie routine of her mornings.

"My wife left me last year," he said, tightening a coaxial cable with practiced ease. "Some days, getting out of bed feels like climbing Everest. But you do it anyway."

Elena looked across the street one last time. David was gone. The boxes were gone. The apartment was empty.

She turned away from the window, picked up her phone, and called her mother for the first time in three years. The bear in the woods of her grief would always be there, but she didn't have to feed it anymore.