The Fruit of Dead Things

Maya stood at the kitchen counter, knife poised over the papaya. It looked perfect from the outside—golden skin, promising sweetness—but when she'd cut it open earlier, the flesh was gray and fermenting. Like her marriage, she thought. Like the seven years she'd given to a man who now moved through their shared life like a zombie, eyes glazed, responding in monosyllables, his body present but everything else long departed.

She'd found the hair on his pillow this morning. Long, dark, unmistakably not hers. Maya's own hair had been falling out in clumps for months—stress, she'd told herself, though she'd known better. The thyroid medication wasn't helping. Nothing was.

Her iphone buzzed on the counter. Another Slack notification from work. The startup was burning through cash and employees alike, her boss growing more desperate with each quarterly review. Maya had stopped caring months ago. What was the point of optimizing retention metrics when she couldn't retain anything real in her own life?

Barnaby, their golden retriever, nudged her hand with his wet nose. He was the only one who still looked at her with something resembling love, though she suspected even that was transactional—the regular dispensing of kibble, the occasional walk around the block she managed most days. His fur was matted now; she hadn't brushed him in weeks.

"I'm sorry," she whispered to the dog, and realized she was crying.

The papaya sat there, mocking her with its false promise of sweetness. She'd bought it yesterday, trying to convince herself that if she just kept buying fresh fruit, cooking actual meals, going through the motions of the woman she used to be, somehow that woman would return. But there was no revival in store. Some things, once they began to rot, could only be discarded.

Maya scraped the papaya into the trash. Then she opened her phone and booked a movers' quote. The zombie in the living room wouldn't notice she was gone until the silence became too loud to ignore.