The Unliving

Maya found him on the balcony, phone clutched in his palm like a religious artifact. The blue light illuminated the hollows of his face in the darkness. Another night, another fight about his emotional absence, another evening where she felt like she was dating a ghost.

"You're more present with that thing than you are with me," she said, leaning against the doorframe. Her cat, Bast, wound around her ankles, sensing the tension. The dog, Buster, had already given up on Mark and lay sleeping on the couch inside.

Mark looked up, his eyes unfocused. "It's work, Maya. I can't just disconnect."

"You're not working. You're doomscrolling. Again."

He gestured vaguely with his iPhone, the screen displaying yet another article about the apocalypse, the economy, the endless cascade of global catastrophes he consumed nightly. "Someone has to know what's happening."

"And what does knowing do?" she asked quietly. "It doesn't change anything. It just makes you feel like you're participating when you're really just—" She stopped herself.

"Just what?"

"Afraid."

The word hung between them. Mark's thumb hovered over his screen, a zombie mid-bite, frozen between consumption and awareness.

"I'm not afraid," he said, but the tremor in his voice betrayed him. "I'm staying informed."

"You're not staying informed, Mark. You're mainlining catastrophe because it's easier than being here, with me, with uncertainty, with the fact that we haven't been happy in months." She stepped onto the balcony, the night air cool against her skin. "You'd rather read about the world ending than do the work to fix what's right in front of you."

Bast meowed from the doorway, impatient with their stasis. Inside, Buster shifted in his sleep, dreaming of simpler things—walks, treats, the joy of existence unburdened by awareness.

Mark looked at his phone, then at Maya, then at the city lights stretching toward an indifferent horizon. For the first time in years, he felt the weight of his own paralysis.

"I don't know how to stop," he whispered.

Maya reached out, her palm open. "Start by putting it down."

He hesitated, thumb still hovering over the screen—a zombie still hungry for disaster, still afraid of the quiet. Then, slowly, he placed the phone in her hand.