The Zombie at Sunrise

Margaret woke at 5 AM, as she had for fifty years. Her joints protested as she swung her legs out of bed—creaky knees, stiff back, the gentle complaints of a body that had carried her through eight decades. 'Morning zombie,' she whispered to herself, chuckling. Her granddaughter Lily had started calling her that last summer, teasing how Grandma shuffled to the kitchen in her robe, eyes half-closed, groping for the coffee maker like the walking dead. Margaret didn't mind. At seventy-eight, being a zombie was better than the alternative.

She made her way to the lake house porch, mug in hand, watching dawn paint the water pink and gold. This lake held everything—five generations of mornings like this, children learning to swim, grandchildren skipping stones, the wake of her husband's fishing boat spreading across the surface until it dissolved into nothing, just like time itself.

The screen door creaked. Lily, now twenty-five and pregnant with the next generation, joined her. 'You doing your zombie walk again, Grandma?'

Margaret smiled. 'Someone has to keep the tradition.' She nodded toward the water. 'Your grandfather used to say running was a young man's game, but water? Water is forever.'

Lily rested her hand on her belly. 'I keep thinking about how much you've seen. How many sunrises.'

'The water doesn't count,' Margaret said. 'It just keeps moving.' She took a sip of coffee. 'I was thinking yesterday about all that running I did—running this house, running after you kids, running from grief when your grandfather died. Thought I'd outrun it.'

'Did you?'

'No. It caught up, gentle as this lake does.' Margaret gestured toward the water, now fully lit. 'That's the thing they don't tell you about getting old. You stop running so fast, but you see more. The zombie shuffle? It's just slowing down enough to notice.'

Lily leaned into her shoulder. 'Notice what?'

'That the water reflects everything. That what we run from catches us anyway. That love doesn't run out.' Margaret set down her mug. 'And that being called a zombie by your favorite grandchild is really quite funny.'

They sat together as the sun climbed higher, the water working its eternal magic—holding light, holding memory, holding them both.