The Automatic Man

The vitamin B12 tablet sat on his tongue like a tiny yellow prayer before he swallowed it dry. Another day, another attempt to manufacture energy he didn't feel. Forty-two years old and already running on supplements and sheer momentum.

Elena watched him from the kitchen doorway, her iPhone glowing against her darkened face. They'd become roommates who shared a bed, two zombies moving through a marriage that had died somewhere between the mortgage refinancing and her miscarriage. He'd asked her once what she was always looking at on that phone. She'd said, "Nothing important." That was the year he stopped asking.

"I'm going out," he said, pulling on his coat. The fedora was already on his head — a ridiculous affectation he'd adopted three months ago, as if a hat could transform him into someone interesting. Someone who wasn't hollowed out by routine.

"Okay," she said, not looking up.

The bar was dim and smelled of stale beer and desperation. He ordered whiskey instead of his usual beer. His phone buzzed in his pocket — work emails, always work emails — but he ignored it. The man beside him slumped forward, face planted on the counter. The bartender sighed and shook him gently. "Zombie again," he muttered.

He stared at his reflection in the mirror behind the bottles. The hat looked stupid. He looked stupid. What was he doing? Who was he trying to become?

His phone lit up with a notification. Not work this time. Elena. A photo: a pregnancy test from two years ago, followed by another from last week. Both negative. The message beneath read: "I'm sorry I stopped trying."

He set the whiskey down untouched. Outside, the cold air hit him like something real. The fedora he'd never wanted, the vitamins that never worked, the screens they'd both hidden behind — all the little deaths they'd chosen.

He walked home. The lights were on when he arrived. Elena stood in the doorway, phone nowhere in sight. He took off his hat.

"I'm tired too," she said.

He nodded. They stood there, two exhausted people who'd forgotten how to be alive together. But for the first time in years, they were standing there honestly.