Dead Channels and Chlorine Dreams

The pool sat stagnant in the backyard, a turquoise promise unkept, its surface slick with fallen leaves and the occasional drowned beetle. Elena hadn't swum in it since the divorce three years ago, though she still paid the service crew to maintain the chemical balance every Tuesday. Balance — that was the joke of it.

The cable bill sat unpaid on the counter, another red notice like a warning flag she kept ignoring. What was television anymore but a graveyard of old dreams, people living lives she'd never have? She'd stopped watching when the silence of the house grew too loud, when the empty spaces between commercials filled themselves with things she couldn't bear to hear.

Buster, her golden retriever, pressed his warm flank against her leg. He was the only thing that still felt real. His fur smelled of dirt and loyalty, of long walks through neighborhoods where other families ate dinner together behind lit windows. Buster didn't care that she hadn't left the house in three days. Buster just wanted his belly scratched and his breakfast on time.

The woman on the news was talking about the outbreak in the city — people coming back, or not quite going, something about virus and reanimation and quarantine zones. Elena watched the reporter's face and thought: she looks like me. The same under-eye circles. The same flat affect. The same zombie quality that came from moving through motions without feeling them.

Her ex-husband had called yesterday. He'd wanted to see Buster. He'd always loved the dog more than he'd loved her, she thought bitterly. But she'd said no, some boundary finally drawn. The dog was hers. The dog was the only thing that made her feel alive.

Elena walked to the back door and looked at the pool again. The water caught the last of the sunset, turning momentarily bright and hopeful before sliding into dusk. Somewhere, people were becoming monsters. Somewhere, the dead were walking. Here, she was just trying to figure out if she had enough dog food for the week.

Buster nudged her hand with his wet nose. "Yeah, buddy," she whispered. "Me too."

She pressed her forehead against the glass, watching the pool's surface shift in the wind, and thought about how easy it would be to just let everything go — the cable, the house, the carefully maintained facade. How easy to slip beneath that water and never come up, to become something else entirely, something that didn't have to feel this hollow ache anymore.

Buster licked her hand. His tongue was warm and real and alive.

She turned away from the glass and went to fill his bowl.