Electric Mourning

The water in the pool was still, glass-like under the encroaching storm. Elena sat on the edge, legs dangling in the chill, nursing her third martini and feeling like something that had died but forgotten to lie down. A zombie, that's what she was—her marriage dead six months, her career on life support, and still she showed up at these gatherings, smiling through teeth that felt too large for her face.

Her iPhone buzzed against the concrete. Tom again. The ex-husband who couldn't decide whether he wanted her back or just wanted to ensure she was properly miserable without him.

A crack of lightning split the sky—violent, electric, illuminating the pool in stark flashes that turned the water into something alien and forbidding. The other partygoers had scattered to the patio, umbrellas flapping in the sudden wind.

Elena stayed. She felt strange, light-headed from the drinks and the heat and the sheer exhaustion of performing okayness for months. She typed a response to Tom: I'm done being your zombie.

Another flash of lightning, closer now. The pool's surface trembled. She thought about how water could be both life-giving and drowning, how her marriage had been like that too. She stripped off her heels, then the dress, letting it fall like a dark memory.

The water shocked her awake. She swam through the rain and lightning, feeling something break open inside her—some buried thing, some last hope. By the time she hauled herself out, shivering and electrified, the storm was moving off, her phone sat silent on the concrete, and for the first time in six months, Elena felt something like alive.