Vitamins for the Living Dead

The alarm woke Elena at 6:00 AM, as it did every weekday, and she lay there for a moment, watching dust motes dance in the pale light filtering through the blinds. Another day of walking through the world feeling hollowed out, like a tree struck by lightning that still stands but has become something else entirely.

She shuffled to the kitchen, where Barnaby — her calico cat of twelve years — wound around her ankles, miaowing insistently. His bowl was empty. Again. 'I know, I know,' she murmured, the rough velvet of his head against her calf the only genuine touch she'd experienced since Michael moved out three months ago.

She popped a vitamin D supplement from its blister pack. The doctor had prescribed them after she complained of fatigue, of feeling like she was moving through water. 'Seasonal affective disorder,' he'd said, not looking up from his prescription pad. 'Take one daily. Get more sun.' As if a tiny gel capsule could compensate for the way her life had shrunk to the dimensions of this apartment, this job, this solitary existence.

The subway was filled with people like her — commuters staring vacantly at their phones, at advertisements, at nothing. Zombies, she thought, not for the first time. That's what we are. The living dead, shuffling to work, shuffling home, consuming, excreting, sleeping, repeating. The thought used to depress her. Now it felt almost comforting, in its way. If they were all zombies together, at least she wasn't alone.

At work, her cubicle-mate Chad caught her staring at a spreadsheet she'd been unable to focus on for twenty minutes. 'You okay, El? You look... tired.' He didn't say it like an accusation, but she heard it anyway.

'Just low on vitamin D,' she said, and forced a smile that felt like cracking a thin layer of ice. 'Doctor says I need more sun.'

'Right,' he said, and turned back to his monitor.

She spent the rest of the day in meetings where people spoke words that meant nothing, nodding at appropriate intervals, taking notes she would never read again. By 5:00 PM, she was back on the subway, surrounded by the same zombies from the morning, their faces illuminated by the blue glow of their devices.

When she opened her apartment door, Barnaby was there to greet her, his purr like a small motor. She sank to the floor and buried her face in his fur, inhaling the scent of him — warm and alive and real. For a moment, she cried, the tears hot and sudden.

The cat didn't pull away. He just purred louder, kneading her thigh with his paws, reminding her that she was still here, still alive, still capable of feeling something. Even if that something was just the weight of him against her chest, the vibration of his purr, the simple fact that in this world of the living dead, she had not yet completely become one of them.

Tomorrow, she would take another vitamin. Tomorrow, she would ride the subway with the other zombies. But tonight, with Barnaby pressed against her heart, Elena felt something like hope, small and fragile and real enough to hold onto.