Palm Reading at the Apocalypse

Maya pressed her sweating palm against the glass of the forty-second floor, watching the orange sunset bleed across the smog-choked skyline. Another day of surviving on vitamin supplements and lukewarm coffee, another day of feeling like a zombie shuffling through the motions of senior marketing manager.

The palm reader at last night's office party had said she was at a crossroads. "You have a long lifeline," the woman had said, tracing Maya's hand, "but you're not really living, are you?"

Lightning struck somewhere in the distance — the storm front moving in, or maybe just her own frayed nerves. The quarterly reports were due tomorrow. Her team expected her presentation at noon. Her ex had texted again, something about "closure" and "missing her laugh."

Instead of reaching for her computer, Maya found herself googling palm readings, existential crises, and vitamin D deficiency. The internet told her she needed sunlight. The internet told her she needed purpose. The internet told her she needed to be anywhere but here.

She stood on the balcony, orange smoke from her neighbor's cigarette curling around her like a serpent, and realized the zombie wasn't her — it was the life she'd carefully constructed. The vitamins weren't keeping her alive. They were keeping her undead.

Another flash of lightning illuminated the city below, and for the first time in six years, Maya didn't see her career. She saw a cage.

Her phone buzzed. "WHERE IS THE DECK???" her boss had typed in all caps.

Maya turned off her phone. She pressed her palm against the glass one last time, feeling the warmth of her own pulse — real, alive, anything but dead. The quarterly reports could wait. The apocalypse was already here, and she'd been sleeping through it.

She grabbed her bag. She didn't know where she was going, only that she was finally, undeniably, awake.