Thirst

Maya swallowed the vitamin C tablet without water, letting it scrape down her throat like a small white promise she kept breaking. Another day at the firm, another supplement to counteract the fluorescent lights and recycled air. Her body was becoming a chemistry experiment she conducted in hopes of feeling something real.

Her iphone buzzed against her thigh—David, again. Three missed calls, twelve texts. She'd told him last night she needed space, but space to David meant calling from different rooms in the house they'd bought together, the mortgage another monthly reminder of a life she'd stepped into like a pair of shoes that had never quite fit.

At her desk, she watched her colleagues move through the open-plan office like zombies—the walking dead of corporate America. Not the pop culture kind with gore and hunger, but something worse: people who'd surrendered so gradually they hadn't noticed the moment their lives stopped belonging to them. Pamela from accounting, who'd dreamed of opening a bakery in Portugal. Marcus, who played guitar in a band that disbanded when his first child was born. They moved between meetings and coffee breaks, eyes glazed over, repeating the same conversations about weekends and weather until time blurred into a single beige afternoon.

Maya went to the breakroom and stood before the water cooler, watching the bubbles rise in the plastic bottle. She was so thirsty lately, a thirst no amount of water could touch. She filled a paper cup, drank, filled another. The water was cold and tasted like nothing at all.

Her phone lit up with a photo David had sent: their wedding day, five years ago. She looked at the woman in the white dress, smiling so fiercely it seemed she was trying to convince herself of something. That woman had believed in vitamins and promotions and five-year plans. That woman had thought wanting something enough was the same as making it real.

Maya pressed her palms against the cool wall and breathed. Outside, it was raining, water drumming against the windows in a rhythm she felt in her chest. For the first time in months, she wanted to be out there—wet, cold, alive in a way her carefully curated life didn't allow.

She walked back to her desk, gathered her things. Her phone buzzed again, but this time she didn't look. Some zombies were waking up, and some were finally learning to sleep. Maya stepped out into the rain and let herself get thoroughly, beautifully soaked.