The Green Stuff

Maya caught her reflection in the microwave door—hollow eyes, slack expression, the corporate zombie persona she'd been perfecting for three years. Six months since Jeremy left, and she was still going through motions that no longer meant anything.

"Spinach again?" Gary from accounting leaned against the breakroom counter, microwave timer counting down his frozen lasagna.

"Trying to be healthier." Maya stirred her Tupperware, watching emerald leaves wilt in the steam. "Jeremy always said I lived on coffee and resentment."

Gary nodded, like he understood. He didn't. Nobody understood what it was like to have your life's blueprint shredded because your husband decided at thirty-eight that he never really wanted children, or suburbs, or you.

The morning meeting brought the new VP—a man who literally thumped his chest when discussing "synergy" and "running with the bulls." Maya watched his hands, thick-knuckled and confident, and thought about how easily some people moved through the world while others were still paying off wedding dresses in closets.

"Maya's been with us ten years," her manager offered, and the bull of a VP turned his attention to her.

"And what do YOU do?" He asked it like a challenge.

"I keep things from falling apart," she said, and the room went quiet.

That night, she burned the spinach. Stood watching blackened curl in the pan while her phone buzzed—Jeremy, asking if she still had his grandmother's cookbook.

Maya scraped the ruined greens into the trash, opened a bottle of wine, and sat on her balcony listening to the city's restless sleep. The zombie feeling had lifted somewhere between the burning spinach and the third glass of cheap Merlot, replaced by something sharper—anger, maybe, or finally, the courage to begin.