The Last Real Thing in the City

The dog lay on the sidewalk, its matted gray fur blending with the concrete. Elias stepped over it, adjusting his hat against the November wind. The animal didn't move—probably dead, or maybe just given up. He couldn't tell the difference anymore.

Forty-two years old and walking to a job that had stopped meaning anything three promotions ago. His friend Mara had called him last night, drunk again, going on about how they were all zombies now. Not the movie kind with their arms out and brains craving. The worse kind—the ones who showed up, nodded in meetings, made small talk about weekends they couldn't remember, and died in slow motion while everyone pretended not to notice.

"You're the worst one," she'd said. "Because you're smart enough to hate it and too scared to stop."

He'd hung up on her. Now, stepping over that dog, he wondered if she was right.

A woman in a trench coat stopped beside him. She knelt down, pressed two fingers to the dog's side.

"He's breathing," she said.

Elias stopped. "Oh."

"Help me get him up?"

"I'm late for a meeting."

"He's going to freeze out here."

Something cracked open in his chest. "My building doesn't allow pets."

"Mine does." She looked up, and her eyes were the color of cold coffee. "I'm Sarah."

"Elias."

Together they lifted the dog. It weighed nothing, hollow bones and hope.

"You going to your meeting?" Sarah asked.

Elias looked at his watch. Then at the dog. Then at the woman who'd stopped for something broken when everyone else kept walking.

"No," he said. "I think I'm done being a zombie."