Dead Things We Feed

Marcus sat across from Elena at the bistro where they'd first kissed seven years ago, before the startup, before the IPO, before he'd become whatever version of himself currently inhabited his body like a zombie tenant who forgot to pay rent. He watched her spear a piece of spinach with unnecessary precision, her engagement ring catching afternoon light. It was new.

"You look tired," she said, and Marcus almost laughed. Tired was for people who slept. He hadn't truly rested in eighteen months, not since he'd chosen the promotion over the weekend trips to her father's lake house, not since he'd started answering emails at 3 AM from the bathroom floor so the light wouldn't wake her.

The television above the bar was playing a baseball game—the Royals versus someone equally mediocre. His father had taught him to keep score in the leather-bound notebook he still kept in his nightstand, somewhere beneath the Unisom bottles and unread novels. Baseball had been the language they spoke when words failed them, a slow meditation of failure and patience that Marcus had traded for quarterly targets and synergistic pivots.

"My mother asked about you," Elena said, and the spinach on her fork trembled. "She thinks we're taking space. She doesn't know you chose stock options over her birthday dinner."

Marcus watched a Royals batter strike out swinging. The crowd's disappointed roar washed over him like distant surf. He wanted to tell Elena everything—that he'd stopped recognizing his own reflection, that he'd forgotten how to want things that couldn't be measured in growth metrics, that he'd become something that wore his skin but didn't quite fit anymore. Instead he said, "How's the catering business?"

Her expression shifted—pity, relief, something like goodbye. "It's good," she said. "I'm happy, Marcus. I finally feel like myself again."

The spinach fell from her fork, landing on the white tablecloth like a small green wound. He watched it stain the fabric, thinking about all the things you couldn't clean up, all the ways you could become a person you never intended to be while everyone was watching. Outside, the day continued without him, and he realized with terrible clarity that this was what the walking dead felt like—not hunger, but the absence of it.