The Last Supper

Margaret stood at the stove, stirring the spinach as it wilted in the pan. The green leaves collapsed like her marriage—slowly, quietly, without anyone noticing until it was too late. Richard sat at the kitchen table, his back to her, illuminated by the blue light of his phone screen.

"Dinner's ready," she said, not really expecting a response.

"Mmhmm," he muttered, his thumb scrolling through whatever was more interesting than the woman he'd promised to love until death.

She spooned the spinach onto two plates, added the salmon she'd seared with more care than he deserved. Outside, lightning split the sky, a jagged crack of white that made the kitchen glow for a split second. The storm had been brewing for hours, much like the silence between them.

They ate in what had become their natural rhythm: Richard checking emails between bites, Margaret watching the rain trace paths down the window. She'd read somewhere that zombies were the perfect monster for modern times—creatures that looked human but had lost everything that made them human. Some days, looking at Richard across the breakfast table, she wondered if they'd both been infected.

"I got a promotion," he said suddenly, not looking up from his plate.

The spinach tasted like ash in her mouth. "That's wonderful."

"It means more travel. Chicago mostly. Maybe New York."

"Chicago's nice in the fall."

Another forkful of salmon. Another lightning strike, closer this time. The thunder followed like an afterthought, just like their anniversary had last month.

"You could come with me sometimes," he offered weakly.

Margaret looked at the man she'd spent twelve years building a life with. They'd bought this house together. They'd buried her mother together. They'd survived layoffs and miscarriages and his father's slow decline into dementia. But somewhere along the way, they'd become roommates who shared a bed and a mortgage, two bodies moving through parallel lives without ever truly touching.

The spinach was cold now. The storm was directly overhead.

"I'm not coming to Chicago, Richard."

He finally looked at her. Really looked at her. For the first time in months, he seemed to actually see her.

"What are you saying?"

Margaret stood up, her plate barely touched. The lightning flashed again, and in that moment of perfect clarity, she understood that some things—like storms and marriages and dead bodies left too long in the heat—eventually reach a point where they can only end in destruction.

"I'm saying," she said softly, "that I think we've both been dead for a long time. And tonight, I'm finally ready to bury us."