Dead Man Floating

Marcus stood in the supplement aisle, paralyzed by the wall of vitamins. B12 for energy, D3 for mood, magnesium for sleep. At 42, he'd become a connoisseur of pills that promised to make him feel something again. His phone buzzed — another Slack message from corporate. He ignored it, just like he'd been ignoring the hollow feeling in his chest since the divorce finalized three months ago.

The gym pool opened at 5 AM. That's where he went now, before the world demanded his performance. Swimming had become his church, his therapy, his only remaining confession. The water didn't care about his 401k or his blood pressure or the way his ex had looked at him when she said she'd stopped feeling alive years ago.

He moved through lane 4, the chlorine stinging his eyes, the rhythm of his strokes drowning out the voice that told him he was just going through the motions. Up and down the pool, counting laps like counting down the years of a sentence he hadn't been convicted of.

A woman in the next lane kept pace with him. She had the look — the same hollowed-out expression he saw in the mirror daily. The look of people who'd been swimming upstream for too long.

They finished together, breathing hard, leaning against the pool edge.

"You're fast," she said, pushing wet hair from her face. "I'm Elena."

"Marcus."

"What's your poison?" she asked, nodding toward his gym bag where the vitamin bottles clinked as he fished for a towel.

"Everything they tell me I need."

She laughed, actually laughed, and something in his chest shifted. "Same. We're all just zombies trying to remember how to be human, aren't we?"

The word hit him like physical force. Zombie. That's exactly what he was — the walking dead, going through motions, waiting for something to wake him up or finish him off.

"Tomorrow," he found himself saying, "same time?"

She smiled, and for the first time in months, Marcus felt something stir beneath the numbness. "Tomorrow."

Maybe vitamins weren't the answer. Maybe it was just finding someone else who knew they were drowning too.