Fox in the Garden at Midnight

Elena felt like a zombie most days now. The corporate grind had hollowed her out, leaving something that moved through meetings and sent emails but didn't quite feel alive anymore. At 34, she'd expected more than this exhausting simulation of adulthood.

Marcus was at padel again — his third time this week. The sport had become his religion, his escape from their quiet unraveling. She watched from the kitchen window as a fox slipped through the back garden, russet coat catching the last light. Wild thing. At least something around here still had instincts.

She'd made spinach and feta for dinner again. It was healthy, responsible, exactly the kind of meal someone who had their life together would make. But when she looked in the mirror, spinach stuck between her teeth like some cruel joke about how nobody noticed the details anymore. Not even Marcus.

Her hair had started showing gray strands last year. She'd plucked them at first, desperate, until Marcus had said he liked them. Said they made her look serious. That was before he started choosing padel over Sunday morning conversations.

The fox paused, watching her through the glass. Something in its golden eyes felt like recognition.

"You should leave," she whispered to the glass. "Before you get comfortable. Before it's too hard to go."

Her phone lit up. Marcus: *Great game. Going for drinks with the team.*

Elena didn't respond. She stood there, spinach forgotten in her teeth, watching the fox vanish into the darkness beyond their garden, wild and unowned and somehow completely free.