Dead Man's Float

Marcus sat on the balcony of the Santa Monica motel, the orange glow of sunset bleeding into the smog. Below him, palm fronds rustled in the wind like dry bones. His iPhone buzzed against the glass table—his third email from the corporate office this evening. The way people kept reaching him, you'd think he mattered.

Inside, Sarah was asleep. Or pretending to be. They hadn't spoken since the funeral, when his brother's best friend had mentioned how much Julian loved watching baseball games with him. Marcus had nodded, unable to admit he'd stopped attending those games three years ago.

He'd become a zombie of sorts—moving through executive meetings and quarterly reports, hollowed out by the gradual understanding that he'd chosen a career over the only person who'd known him before the ambition set in.

"You never came," Julian had written in his final letter. Marcus had found it crumpled in his brother's jacket pocket at the hospital. "Not to the games. Not to the dinners. Not to my life."

He poured the rest of his drink. The alcohol burned going down, sharp and honest.

"Marcus." Sarah stood in the sliding doorway, silhouette against the yellow lamp light inside. "The rental car is here. We need to go to the airport."

He looked at his phone again. Another notification. A meeting request for Monday morning. He thought about Julian's letter, folded in his wallet like a wound.

"Marcus?"

He stood up, pockets his phone, and looked at the woman who'd waited seven years for him to be present. For the first time, he saw exhaustion in her posture that matched his own.

"Cancel the car," he said.

She stared at him.

"Cancel the car," he repeated. "And the meeting Monday. And everything else until I figure out how to stop being dead while I'm still alive."

The orange light had faded from the sky. But somewhere beneath it, for the first time in years, Marcus thought he might actually be waking up.