The Vitamins We Swallow

Elena stared at the morning pill organizer—Monday through Sunday, each compartment a tiny coffin of her intentions. The vitamin D supplement glowed artificial orange in the kitchen's fluorescent light. Another year at McKinney & Associates, another promise to herself that this would be the year she finally started taking care of herself. At forty-seven, the gap between who she was and who she'd intended to become had widened into a canyon she crossed each day on autopilot.

She caught her reflection in the darkened kitchen window. Gray threads had begun colonizing her temples, microscopic invaders marching through what used to be chestnut hair. Elena had stopped coloring it six months ago, a small rebellion she couldn't fully explain—even to herself. Her mother would have called it "letting herself go." Her ex-husband had certainly suggested as much during their last counseling session, right before announcing he'd found someone who "still had ambition."

"Bullshit," Elena whispered now, the word tasting like rusty coins. Grant had left because she'd stopped pretending his career was more interesting than her own existence. He'd wanted a trophy who looked twenty-eight forever; she'd wanted, eventually, to remember what she actually liked.

The subway ride was a meditation in urban decay. She watched her fellow commuters—eyes glazed, screens reflected in their pupils, fingers scrolling, scrolling, scrolling. We were all zombies now, she realized, not eating brains but consuming content, endless and hollow. The living dead of late capitalism, shuffling toward cubicles that smelled of stale coffee and quiet desperation.

Her phone buzzed. A text from Marcus, the architect she'd met at that dreadful gallery opening three weeks ago. Dinner tonight? His previous message had been a photo of a sunrise over some beach—probably Bali or Tulum, she couldn't remember. Men like Marcus always sent sunrise photos. It was their way of saying "I have money and free time and you should want me" without actually having to articulate anything real.

Elena thought about declining. She thought about going home, pouring a glass of wine, and watching the same Netflix documentary she'd seen three times already. Safe. Familiar. Dead.

Instead she typed: Pick me up at 7. And Marcus?

Yes?

Don't send me any more photos of sunrises. I prefer the dark.

On the platform, she found herself smiling for the first time in days. A woman standing nearby caught her eye and smiled back—a tiny conspiracy of two living creatures in a city of ghosts. The vitamins in her purse rattled as she stepped onto the escalator, ascending toward whatever came next.

Maybe tomorrow she'd actually take one.