The Zombie in the Mirror

Maya caught her reflection in the office bathroom and didn't recognize the woman staring back. Hollow eyes, skin that had gone the color of old parchment, a smile that felt taped on. She'd become what she once pitied: a corporate zombie, shuffling through PowerPoint decks and Zoom calls, her soul extracted somewhere between Q3 and Q4.

At home, Barnaby — her elderly golden retriever — waited. He was the only thing that still felt real. His hips were failing, his muzzle gone white, but when he thumped his tail against the floorboards, something in her chest cracked open. "We're both old, buddy," she whispered, burying her face in his fur. "Neither of us moves like we used to."

That evening, her partner Marcus brought home a bag of groceries. "Got you those papayas you like," he said, setting them on the counter. But Maya couldn't remember the last time she'd eaten papaya. Couldn't remember the last time she'd wanted anything at all.

She watched him move through their kitchen — efficient, purposeful, alive — and felt a scream building behind her ribs. When had she started feeling this dead? Was it after the promotion? The miscarriage? Or had it been gradual, like rust, until one day she woke up and realized she was hollow?

Marcus sliced open an orange, the citrus scent cutting through the stale air of their life together. He held out a wedge. "Maya?"

She looked at his hand, then at Barnaby sleeping at her feet, then at the papaya on the counter. And something snapped. The zombie in the mirror had been her — but it didn't have to be.

"I need to tell you something," she said, and the words came pouring out: about the hollow feeling, about how she couldn't remember the last time she'd felt joy, about how she'd been moving through her life like it belonged to someone else.

Marcus stopped peeling the orange. "I know," he said softly. "I've been waiting for you to notice."

Outside, the sun was setting. Maya took the orange wedge from his hand, tasted its bright acid, and for the first time in months, felt something stir beneath her ribs. Not alive, not yet. But something that could be.