Lightning at the Net

I'd been walking through life like a zombie for three months since Maya left. The autopilot got me to work, back home, through meetings where I nodded at appropriate intervals. My colleagues probably didn't notice the difference. That's the thing about corporate existence—everyone's already half-dead anyway.

Then Javier, insufferable in his relentless kindness, invited me to play padel. "You need to get out of your head, man. It's just tennis in a box, you'll love it."

I stood at the net, sweat stinging my eyes, racquet dangling from my grip like a dead thing. The court smelled of rubber and desperation. Across from me, Javier's golden retriever, Buster, watched through the fence with what I swear was judgment.

"You're not even trying," Javier called, smashing the ball against the glass wall. It made a sound like a gunshot.

"Why bother?" I muttered. The words hung between us, heavier than the humidity.

Then it happened—lightning split the sky, a violent crack that made us both jump. The lights in the court flickered and died. In that sudden darkness, with rain beginning to hammer the glass roof, something in me cracked too.

"Because you're still here," Javier said quietly in the dark. "Because Maya's gone, but you're not. And Buster needs a walk, and I need a partner who doesn't lick my face, and somewhere in that zombie body of yours, there's still a person who gives a shit."

The emergency lights hummed on. I looked at my hands, at the racquet, at the absurd little blue ball resting near my feet.

"Serve," I said.

Javier grinned. "That's the spirit."

I hit the ball into the net. But I hit it hard.