The Lightning in Her Orange Juice

Maya hadn't slept properly in three weeks. She moved through the office like a **zombie**—that particular corporate variety of undead that consumed espresso instead of brains and whose groans were restricted to conference calls. Her colleagues didn't notice. They were too busy being their own varieties of functionally deceased, the whole floor a graveyard of ambition with excellent dental benefits.

At 4 PM, she sat in the break room watching **lightning** fracture the sky outside floor-to-ceiling windows. Each flash illuminated her reflection: hollow eyes, skin that had forgotten what sunlight felt like. She opened her drawer and stared at the **vitamin** supplements—D for the days she never saw the sun, B-complex for energy she couldn't summon, magnesium for sleep that wouldn't come. The irony choked her sometimes: she'd never been healthier or more dead inside.

"You look like **water** that's been sitting out too long," Julian said, appearing beside her. He was the new hire, thirty-two and still believed in things like mission statements and authentic connection. Maya was forty-one and knew better.

"That's oddly poetic," she said.

"My ex was a poet." He placed an **orange** on the table. "Trade you for whatever existential crisis you're having."

She laughed—really laughed, for the first time in months. "You're going to weaponize citrus against my ennui?"

"Works every time." His smile reached his eyes, which was annoying and captivating. "My grandma swore oranges could cure anything. Heartbreak, Mondays, the realization that you've spent two decades building a life you don't want."

Maya peeled the orange. The scent was violent, sunlight and acid. "You're too perceptive for a temp."

"I'm permanent as of Monday." He hesitated. "I noticed you in meetings. You ask questions everyone else is afraid to ask. You're not dead, Maya. You're just hibernating."

She ate a segment. It burned her tongue with something like life. "What if I've forgotten how to wake up?"

Julian's hand covered hers. His skin was warm, absurdly warm, and the contact sent electricity through her that had nothing to do with the storm outside.

"Then we start with oranges," he said. "And work our way up to living again."

Outside, the sky broke open. Rain washed over the city, and for the first time in forever, Maya didn't feel like she was drowning. She felt like she was finally learning how to swim.