The Long Drift

Elena woke to the sound of water running through old pipes, a ghostly rhythmic thrumming that had become her alarm clock since Mark died. She lay in bed, limbs heavy, feeling like something undead—a zombie moving through life without truly inhabiting it. Forty-two years old and she'd forgotten how to be alive.

Her cat, Balthazar, jumped onto the mattress, his weight a familiar anchor. He'd been Mark's cat, a surly black tom who'd grudgingly accepted her presence after the funeral. Animals knew grief in their bones.

She rolled out of bed at 5:30 AM, running on autopilot through the morning rituals. Coffee, shower, the same gray skirt and blouse she'd worn to work twice that week already. The office was a blur of spreadsheets and conference calls, her colleagues moving like automatons while she drafted memos about quarterly projections that meant nothing to anyone.

At lunch, she sat by the fountain in the plaza, watching water cascade down terraced stones. A man approached—Harold from Accounting, wearing his carefully pressed suit and carrying a brown paper bag. He sat on the bench beside her without speaking, and they shared the silence of people who'd stopped pretending things were fine.

"I can't bear it anymore," he said finally, not looking at her. "My wife's been gone eight months and I still check her side of the bed every morning."

Elena felt something crack open in her chest. "It's been six months for me," she said. "Yesterday I bought his favorite brand of whiskey before remembering he's not here to drink it."

They sat together, two zombies in business attire, while the fountain whispered its endless song. When Harold stood to leave, he touched her shoulder briefly—a simple human contact that felt like electricity against her skin.

"Same time tomorrow?" he asked.

She nodded, already looking forward to it more than anything in her hollowed-out existence. For the first time since the funeral, the long drift didn't feel quite so lonely.