The Orange on the Windowsill

Mara moved through the office like a zombie—not the flesh-eating kind from movies, but the corporate variety: eyes glazed, soul hollowed, performing tasks with muscle memory while her mind was somewhere else. Anywhere else.

The vitamin D supplements sat on her desk in a bright orange bottle, a daily reminder that her body was starving for something the fluorescent lights couldn't provide. Take with food, the label warned. She never remembered.

Then Julian joined the firm.

He brought oranges. Not clementines or easy-to-peel Cuties, but thick-skinned navel oranges that he'd crack open with his bare hands, the scent of citrus oil cutting through the recycled air. He'd leave segments on her desk without speaking, as if feeding a stray animal.

"You're fading," he told her once, leaning against her cubicle wall. "Like paper left in the sun."

"I'm fine," she said, though she hadn't felt fine since she couldn't remember when.

"Your vitamin bottle is full," he noted. "You're not taking them."

She shrugged.

He started leaving actual food with the oranges. Almonds. Hard-boiled eggs. A proper lunch. And she started taking the vitamins, started sitting by the window where he'd leave them, started noticing how the sun hit her desk at 2 PM.

"Why?" she asked him eventually.

Julian peeled an orange, his fingers stained with juice. "Because I see you. And you're not actually dead yet, Mara."

Something cracked in her chest. "Some days I'm not sure."

"Then eat," he said, and fed her a segment like it was something sacred.

She didn't fall in love with him. That would be too simple. She fell in love with the way he made her remember she had a body, that she needed food and light and things that grew from soil. The way his oranges reminded her that the world still produced things that were alive, even when she felt dead inside.

Six months later, she stopped taking the vitamins. The orange bottle sat dusty on her shelf.

"You don't need them anymore," Julian said, and it wasn't a question.

"No," she agreed. "But I still need the oranges."

He smiled like he understood exactly what she meant. The zombie had been alive all along. She'd just forgotten how to feed it.