The Weight of Things Unsaid

The papaya sat on my desk, perfectly round and impossibly orange, like a planet from a galaxy where things didn't fall apart. Elena had brought it yesterday, before the email from HR. "You need more vitamin C," she'd said, placing it beside my framed photos of a life that no longer felt like mine. "You look like you haven't slept in a week."

She wasn't wrong. The vitamin supplements rattled in my drawer every time I opened it—a pharmacy of sleep aids, B-complex, something for focus, something for calm. My body had become a chemistry experiment I couldn't quite get right.

Outside my apartment, Miller's dog barked at nothing, the same lonely yip that had kept me awake since she left. The animal knew something was wrong, could probably smell the desperation emanating through thin walls.

The bull—that's what we called Richard—had called me into his office at 4:59 PM. His eyes were flat, dead. "We're restructuring, Marcus."

I'd heard about this. The friend who'd warned me three weeks ago, whispering over drinks about the spreadsheet with the red columns. I should've listened. Instead, I'd stayed late, eaten the papaya she'd brought like it was communion wine, pretended competence was armor.

Now I sat at my kitchen table, the fruit still uneaten. Richard's words echoed: restructuring. Such a clean word for such a messy thing.

Miller's dog barked again. The papaya had softened overnight, its skin dimpling where life was already leaving it. Everything rots. Everything ends. The only choice was whether to let it decay gracefully or cut it open while it still had something left to give.

I picked up the knife, sliced through the orange skin. Inside, black seeds clustered like dark thoughts. The flesh wept sweet juice against my fingers. Elena had been right—I did need this. But not because of vitamins.

Because sometimes, you have to consume the thing that reminds you you're still alive, even when you wish you weren't.