The Last Clean Kitchen

Marcus stood at the kitchen counter, staring at the wilted spinach in the colander like it held the answers to his unraveling marriage. Three years of meal prep, of Sunday mornings at the farmer's market together, reduced to this: a single bag of greens neither of them would eat now.

"You're acting like a zombie," Sarah had said that morning, her voice cracking in that way that made his chest hurt. "Just going through the motions. I can't tell if you're actually here or if you died months ago and your body hasn't figured it out yet."

The truth was, he had died. Not physically — that would have been simpler. But somewhere between the pyramid scheme of corporate advancement that had consumed his twenties and the swimming pool of debt they'd drowned themselves in to maintain this life, Marcus had lost the ability to feel anything genuine. He'd learned to bear it, though. Bear the commute, bear the performance reviews, bear the way Sarah looked at him now like he was a stranger she'd made a terrible investment in.

He remembered their honeymoon in Egypt, climbing inside the Great Pyramid at dawn, pressing their hands against the cool limestone. "We're building our own pyramid," she'd whispered, squeezing his fingers. "Just us, brick by brick."

Now their pyramid was empty. A tomb they'd excavated together.

Marcus moved the spinach to the frying pan, watched it steam and shrink in the olive oil. The smell rose up green and bitter. Outside, the neighbor's dog barked at something invisible — probably a ghost, probably one of the many things that haunted this subdivision.

He could bear the silent dinners. Could bear sleeping back-to-back without touching. But he couldn't bear lying to himself anymore. Couldn't bear pretending that the man who'd swum too far into deep waters was ever going to find his way back to shore.

Marcus turned off the stove. The spinach sat there, dark and collapsed, and suddenly he understood exactly how it felt — to start out so full of possibility and end up reduced to something nobody wanted.

He picked up his phone. Typed: I think you're right about the zombie thing. Then he set it down, watched the screen light up, and waited for the beginning of whatever came next.