Screen Burn

The alarm on my iPhone blared at 6:00 AM, and I rolled over with that familiar heaviness—that sensation of moving underwater, of being something not quite alive. Another Tuesday in the string of Tuesdays that had defined my thirties.

I checked work emails before my feet touched the floor. Another crisis. Another fire to put out. I moved through my morning routine like a zombie, body operating on autopilot while my mind remained mercifully elsewhere. No wonder my ex-girlfriend said I was already dead—she just hadn't realized she was talking about my soul.

Barnaby, my cat, wound around my ankles as I made coffee, his orange tabby fur the only splash of color in my gray kitchen. He purred loudly, demanding breakfast with an indignation I wished I still possessed. At least he knew what he wanted.

"Same old, buddy," I muttered, scratching behind his ears. "We're both just surviving."

The gym pool was empty at 6:45. I swam lap after lap, my body cutting through the water while my mind replayed the same loops of worry, regret, and exhaustion. Swimming had always been my escape—the weightlessness, the silence, the way the world narrowed to breath and stroke. Lately, even the water felt heavy.

On the eighth lap, something shifted. My iPhone sat on the pool deck, screen dark, and for a moment I considered leaving it there. Just walking away. Letting the world burn without me.

Instead, I surfaced, gasping, and stared at the ceiling where water rippled across white plaster. And I began to weep—not quiet tears but great, racking sobs that echoed off the tiles. I cried for the marriage I'd been too distracted to save, for the father who'd died while I was on a conference call, for the years I'd spent moving through life as if I were already a ghost.

Barnaby was waiting by the door when I returned, wet-eyed and water-logged. He didn't judge. He simply demanded his breakfast, and then demanded my lap, his purr vibrating against my chest as I sat on the couch, phone finally turned off, feeling—really feeling—something for the first time in years.

"Okay," I whispered to him, and to myself. "Not dead yet."

The zombie had awakened. And tomorrow, I would swim differently.