Reading the Zombie's Palm

The air conditioning in the call center had been broken for three weeks. Maya sat in cubicle 47, her headset pressing into her ear, answering questions about insurance claims for people who hated her existence. She was twenty-eight and felt like a zombie—dead inside, shambling through the motions, consuming coffee instead of brains.

Her phone buzzed. Brent again. "We need to talk," his text read. She stared at her reflection in the dark monitor. Dark circles under her eyes, hair pulled back in a messy bun that had started hurting her scalp hours ago. She'd stopped bothering with makeup months ago. What was the point?

"Maya, your break was over two minutes ago," her supervisor called from somewhere behind her. The fluorescent lights hummed, a sound that lived in her teeth now.

She stood up and kept walking. Past the elevators. Past the security guard who never looked up from his phone. Into the Miami heat.

The ocean was three blocks away. She needed it like she needed air.

The boardwalk was mostly empty at 11 AM on a Tuesday. Tourists were smarter than this. Maya found herself drawn to a small tent she'd never noticed before—hand-painted sign: "Madame Zora, Palm Reader, $20."

A woman sat inside, maybe sixty, with silver hair in intricate braids and skin the color of polished walnut. Behind her, a palm tree cast stripes of shadow across the fabric walls.

"Sit," the woman said. Not an invitation. A command.

Maya sat. Extended her hand.

Madame Zora turned Maya's palm upward, traced the lines with a fingernail painted chipped red. "You're not dead yet, child."

"I feel like I am."

"That's different." The old woman's eyes were startlingly clear. "You've been drowning for a long time. But you're still fighting for the surface."

"I'm not sure I am anymore."

"Then why did you walk out today?" Madame Zora pressed a cool glass of water into Maya's free hand. "Drink. Then decide."

The water tasted like salt and redemption. Maya drank it all, feeling something shift in her chest—something that had been frozen since Brent had started disappearing into his work, since her promotion had turned into a cage, since she'd forgotten what it felt like to want anything.

"Your life line is interrupted," Madame Zora said, "but it continues. That's the part that matters."

Maya looked at her palm, really looked at it, and saw what the woman meant. The break in the line. The continuation.

"Thank you," she said, and placed all the cash from her wallet on the table.

She walked back toward the call center, then stopped. Turned toward the ocean instead. She could feel the water calling her, and for the first time in years, she wanted to answer.