The Archaeology of Empty Fridges

The cat watched me with judgment in those yellow eyes as I stood before the open refrigerator at 2 AM, its hum the only sound in my apartment. Inside, a container of wilted spinach sat next to a single beer—archaeological evidence of a life I'd stopped living somewhere around month three of the merger.

I took the spinach anyway, chewing it raw while leaning against the counter. It tasted bitter, like the truth I'd been avoiding: I had become what I'd once mocked. At work, I climbed the corporate pyramid with ruthless efficiency, each promotion stripping away another layer of the person I used to be. My colleagues called me "machine." They didn't know I envied them their capacity to care anymore.

The cat—Barnaby, a rescue who hated everyone except me, and barely tolerated me on good days—jumped onto the counter and head-butted my chin. His fur smelled of dust and sunlight, two things I rarely saw anymore.

"You're the only one who knows I'm still here," I whispered.

My phone buzzed on the counter. Elena. The woman I'd stopped calling back three weeks ago because I couldn't remember how to have conversations that didn't involve deliverables or synergies. She'd left six messages. I'd listened to all of them, saved them, then done nothing.

I thought about the dead—how they say your brain stays active for minutes after your heart stops. That was me: a zombie in a tailored suit, consciousness flickering in the hollow shell of ambition, moving through motions I'd long ago forgotten how to feel.

The spinach settled in my stomach like regret. Barnaby purred, the vibration traveling through my ribs, and something cracked open inside me. I picked up the phone, scrolled to Elena's number, and pressed call.

"Hey," I said when she answered, voice rusty with disuse. "I don't want to be this person anymore."

Silence on the line. Then: "I was hoping you'd say that."

Barnaby curled around my legs as I slid down to the kitchen floor, and for the first time in months, I didn't feel like I was already dead.