The Walking Dead at 9 AM

I'd been staring at my reflection in the bathroom mirror for ten minutes, cataloging the new gray hairs like they were evidence of a slow murder. My hair had started thinning at thirty-two, but now, at forty, it was retreating like a defeated army.

'You look like shit,' I told myself. 'You look like a corpse that hasn't been told to lie down yet.'

My iPhone buzzed on the counter. Sarah. The friend who'd somehow survived my divorce, my breakdown, and that year I stopped answering calls.

'You alive?' her text read. 'Drinks tonight?'

I stared at my phone the way a starving person stares at food. Another buzz: 'Or are you still playing zombie at that law firm?'

The joke landed hard. She'd started calling me that two years ago — the walking dead, the corporate zombie, the creature who'd traded passion for partnership track and dreams for billable hours. She wasn't wrong. I'd moved through life like a person in a trance, showing up to work, going through motions, coming home to an empty apartment that smelled like stagnation and takeout containers.

'I'm done,' I typed back, fingers trembling. 'Pick you up at seven.'

My reflection stared back, suddenly alive in a way it hadn't been in years. The gray hairs were still there, but suddenly they felt like proof I'd survived something, not evidence I was losing.

Outside, the city was waking up. I walked toward the subway, and for the first time in forever, I didn't feel like I was sleepwalking through my own life. The world had color again. I had a friend. I had a drink scheduled. I had, somehow, found my pulse.