Conducting Current

The lightning outside cracked the sky open, but inside our apartment, the only electricity was the blue glow of our phones, back to back on the mattress. Six months of this – me becoming a zombie to my own life, stumbling through work meetings and evening routines like something animated without any real pulse behind the eyes. I'd catch my reflection in office bathroom mirrors: hollowed-out gaze, mouth moving on autopilot.

I thought you were fine.

I think because you were still doing everything – cooking, your job, the Sunday morning coffee ritual – I assumed the machinery was still working. But the lightning flash illuminated your profile as you stared at your screen, and for that split second, you looked exactly like me.

Like something that had forgotten how to be alive.

The rain started then, water drumming against the window like fingers trying to get our attention. I watched your thumb scroll, scroll, scroll.

"When did we stop?" I asked, and my voice sounded foreign in my own throat.

You turned. The lightning flashed again, and I saw your pupils contract, saw something like fear flicker across your face. Or maybe relief.

"Stop what?" you asked, but you already knew.

"Being real," I said. "With each other. With ourselves."

You put your phone down. That was the first real movement I'd seen from you in months – not something performed, but something actual.

"I don't know," you said softly. "I think I've been waiting for you to notice."

The water on the windows blurred the city lights beyond into streaks of color. I reached for your hand and your fingers were cold.

"I'm sorry," I said. "I was so far gone I didn't realize you'd gone too."

You squeezed my hand. Hard. Like a pulse returning.

Outside, the sky cracked open again, lightning painting the room in stark relief. And for the first time in half a year, I saw you – really saw you – and you saw me.

Two zombies, struck awake.