The Zombie's Sunday

The ball hit the wall with a hollow thud, returning at an angle neither of them could have predicted. Padel was supposed to be their thing — the weekend ritual that kept them from becoming what Marcus called 'zombie couples': those marrieds who shambled through Ikea together, eyes glazed, passion dead but mortgage very much alive.

'You're not even trying,' Elena said, wiping sweat from her forehead. The fox-orange sunset cast long shadows across the court.

'I'm trying.' He wasn't. His mind was still on the text message he'd seen on her phone two days ago. Just a lunch meeting. Nothing definitive. But the timing had been suspicious, and she'd been dressing differently lately. Softer. More deliberate.

They walked home in uncomfortable silence. Past the pub where they'd first kissed. Past the bakery where they'd bought croissants every Sunday morning until this year. Marcus felt like he was sleepwalking through his own life, a zombie in reverse — dead inside while his body kept moving through the motions.

At home, he started dinner while she showered. Spinach wilted in the pan, turning from vibrant green to something sadder, darker. He remembered how she used to watch him cook, leaning against the counter, stealing tastes. Now she barely seemed to notice what he put on the table.

A real fox darted through their garden as he looked out the kitchen window — scrawny, mangy, impossibly alive. It stopped and looked back at him with eyes that seemed to know something he didn't.

'What are you looking at?' Elena asked, coming up behind him. Fresh from the shower, she smelled like the orange blossom soap he'd bought her last Valentine's. She'd barely used it then. Now she used it daily.

'Just a fox.' He didn't turn around. 'Thinking about how wild things don't ask to be understood. They just are.'

She was quiet for a long moment. 'Is that what you want? To not be understood?'

Marcus turned. Her eyes were wet.

'I don't know what I want anymore,' he said. 'Except maybe to stop feeling like I'm already dead and just waiting for my body to figure it out.'

She reached for his hand, her fingers cold against his. 'Then let's figure out how to be alive again. Together.'

The spinach was ruined, but neither of them cared. They stood there as the last light faded, watching the fox disappear into the darkness, both terrified and hopeful that they might still find their way back to each other.