Season of the Living

Maya parked her Honda in the underground garage and sat for a moment, fingers wrapped around the steering wheel like she might need to strangle it. Three years since David left. Two years since she started feeling like a zombie at work—showing up, going through motions, her Excel spreadsheets and quarterly reports a kind of elaborate performance art for people who barely noticed she was there.

The elevator dinged. 14th floor.

Her golden retriever, Buster, waited at home. The thought of his graying muzzle and the way he still greeted her like she'd been gone for decades pulled her forward. That, and the promise she'd made herself: tonight would be different.

She'd cancelled her cable that morning. No more scrolling past couples cooking together on Netflix, no more background hum of other people's lives filling her apartment. It was time.

Maya stopped at the corner market on the way home. The produce section glowed under artificial light, and she picked up an orange—something bright and alive against the fluorescent sterility. The cashier, a woman with tired eyes and nametag that read "LINDA," didn't look up. Maya felt a sudden kinship with her.

"Have a good night," Maya said, and meant it.

Linda's head snapped up. For a second, something flickered behind her eyes—recognition that someone had actually seen her. "You too, honey."

Back in her apartment, Buster did his whole-body wiggle dance. Maya sat on the floor with him, peeled the orange. The scent of citrus filled the kitchen, sharp and real. She ate a segment, the juice bursting on her tongue—sweet, tart, undeniable evidence that she was alive, that she could still feel something beyond the gray fog of her daily routine.

She looked at the blank space where her cable box had been. Then at her phone, dark and silent on the counter.

Tomorrow, she'd call her mother. Tomorrow, she'd sign up for that pottery class she'd been thinking about since before David. Tonight, she'd sit with her dog and eat an orange in the quiet, and it would be enough.

The zombie feeling had settled in her chest like a second heart, cold and patient. But for the first time in years, Maya thought she might be ready to let it die.