Fruit of the Dead

The papaya sat on the granite countertop, its skin turning from green to angry yellow, like a bruise that refused to heal. Sarah had bought it three days ago, back when she still believed things could get better. Now its soft flesh reminded her of how easily something could rot from the inside out.

"You're being dramatic," David had said last night, his voice flat, eyes glazed over in that way they'd been for months. "It's just a phase."

It wasn't a phase. It was a rot.

She watched him now across the breakfast table, pushing his eggs around his plate, mechanical and vacant. Her husband had become a zombie in slow motion — the emotional kind, the one that happened when someone stopped caring but kept showing up. Stopped loving but kept sleeping beside you. Stopped living but kept breathing.

He caught her looking. "What?"

"Remember when we talked about opening that food truck?" she asked quietly. "Papaya salads and fresh coconut."

David shrugged. "That was years ago. People change."

People changed. He'd become something else entirely. The man who once held her through panic attacks now couldn't remember to ask how her day went. The man who used to write her poems now sent emojis instead. The man she married had been replaced by this — this creature going through motions, this hollowed-out version of the person she'd loved.

She picked up the papaya, its soft skin giving under her fingers like something sick.

"Bullshit," she said aloud.

He looked up, annoyed. "What?"

"All of it. Everything you've been telling me. Every excuse, every promise, every 'I'll try harder tomorrow.' It's bullshit."

Sarah stood up, papaya in hand, and realized she was done mourning someone who was still alive. Done loving a ghost. Done waiting for a resurrection that wasn't coming.

The zombie blinked at her, confused.

She dropped the fruit in the trash. It landed with a soft, final thud.