The Thursday I Woke Up

The alarm screamed at 6:30 AM like it always did, and Sarah reached for it with the same mechanical motion she'd performed for seven years. Her hand knocked against the bottle of vitamin D supplements on her nightstand—her doctor's orders for someone who saw sunlight only through office windows. She swallowed one dry, thinking about how it was supposed to help with energy, with mood, with the general sense that she was slowly disappearing.

She put on her hat, a structured wool thing she'd bought on sale, hoping it would make her look like someone who had her life together. It was part of the uniform, really. The blazer. The tote bag. The carefully curated expression that said she was present and engaged and absolutely not thinking about how much of her existence felt borrowed.

"You look like a zombie," her mother had said the last time they'd spoken, that particular blend of concern and judgment that only mothers could perfect. Sarah had laughed it off, made a joke about deadline season, but the words had stuck. Zombie. The living dead. Moving through motions without truly inhabiting them.

The subway was crowded, faces pressed against glass, everyone scrolling, everyone absent. She watched her reflection in the window across from her and wondered if her mother was right. When had she started watching her life from the outside?

Then lightning cracked through the tunnel—or what felt like lightning, anyway. A man stood up, clutching a small velvet box, and dropped to one knee. The car went silent. People looked up from their phones. The woman across from him started crying, saying yes, and suddenly everyone was human again. The spell broke. Someone passed around tissues. Another person offered to take photos. A third pulled out emergency breakfast snacks from their bag like they'd been waiting for exactly this moment.

Sarah reached into her pocket and touched the bottle of vitamins, then adjusted her hat. She wasn't dead yet. The zombie could wake up. Maybe it would start with something small. Maybe she'd finally use those museum tickets she'd bought months ago. Maybe she'd call her mother and have an honest conversation. Maybe she'd simply notice the way the morning light hit the buildings when she emerged from the subway, golden and desperate and absolutely, beautifully alive.