Papaya for the Walking Dead

The papaya sat on Maya's kitchen counter, improbably vibrant in her gray apartment. Three months since I'd seen my best friend, and she looked like she'd been hollowed out.

"They fired everyone," Maya said, staring at the fruit. "Whole department. We're just zombies now, walking around pretending to be alive."

Her skin had that same papery quality I'd noticed at the funeral, drained of something essential. The office had done this to her—eight years of spreadsheets and performance reviews until she'd forgotten how to want things.

"Eat the papaya," I said, pushing it toward her. "Remember Costa Rica?"

She touched the orange flesh hesitantly. "That was before. Before everything became... this."

I'd brought the papaya because I remembered how she used to be—how we both used to be—barefoot on a beach, sticky with fruit juice, believing the world was ours to claim. Now we were thirty-two, and the world had claimed us instead.

"I'm getting married," I told her.

Maya's knife paused. She looked up, and for a second, the zombie flickered—something human behind her eyes. "To who?"

"David. From accounting."

"David who hates papaya."

"He doesn't hate papaya. He just... prefers structure."

She laughed, and it was the first real sound I'd heard from her in months. "Structure. That's what we're calling it now. Giving up."

The sun through the window turned everything orange, that impossible California sunset that makes you believe in second chances until the darkness falls. Maya took a bite of the papaya, juice running down her chin like she was five years old again.

"I missed this," she said. "Being alive."

"We don't have to be zombies," I said, though I didn't believe it. "We could—"

"Quit? Run away? Grow papayas?" She wiped her face with the back of her hand. "You're getting married to a man who loves spreadsheets. I'm collecting unemployment. We're not in Costa Rica anymore."

But she kept eating. And in the orange light, for just a moment, neither of us were dead inside.