The Lightning Season

The lightning flashed across the windows of the penthouse, illuminating her profile as she stared at the padel court below. They'd met there three years ago, both sweating and alive, neither of them yet the zombies they'd become.

Marcus watched her from the doorway. Elena was still beautiful, even after everything—the cheating, the silence, the way they moved through their marriage like sleepwalkers. She'd started taking those vitamins from the holistic doctor, little yellow capsules supposed to fix what therapy couldn't.

"I'm going out," she said without turning.

"In this weather?"

"The lightning makes it interesting."

She left, and Marcus found himself alone in their gleaming kitchen. He opened the refrigerator, stared at the wilted spinach she'd bought yesterday from that overpriced organic market. Another attempt at health, at renewal, at becoming people they weren't anymore.

He threw the spinach in the pan, watching it collapse the way everything between them had collapsed so gradually he'd barely noticed until it was gone.

The thunder rattled the windows. Marcus remembered their first match at the padel club, how she'd laughed when he tripped, how she'd tasted like sweat and champagne afterward. Now she was probably at the club right now, playing with whoever she was seeing this week. The lightning would make the glass walls flicker like a strobe, freezing moments of her fake happiness.

He took a bite of the spinach. It tasted like everything he'd lost.

His phone buzzed. A message from her: I'm not coming back.

Marcus set the phone down carefully. Outside, another bolt of lightning struck, and for a moment, everything was brilliantly, painfully visible. Then darkness returned, and he was just another zombie eating spinach in an empty kitchen, waiting for someone to tell him how to feel alive again.