Vitamins for the Walking Dead
The fluorescent buzz of the office at 9 PM felt like a violation. Elena pressed her palms against her eyes, seeing the afterimage of spreadsheets that had consumed her existence for three years.
"You're still here?"
She jumped. David from Accounting stood in the doorway, holding a paper cone of water.
"Zombie reporting for duty," she said, gesturing at her desk. "What's your excuse?"
"Live to work, work to..." He shrugged. "Want to get out of here? There's this place around the corner."
They sat at the bar as David pulled a pill case from his pocket. "Vitamin D. My doctor says I don't see enough sun." He tapped another compartment. "These are for stress. These are for focus. I'm basically a pharmacy."
Elena laughed. "You're not living. You're just... maintaining."
"And you're different?"
She couldn't deny it. She'd been a zombie since her promotion—going through motions, achieving things that meant nothing.
"My mom was obsessed with vitamins," Elena said suddenly. "She'd line up all these bottles. Said they were her insurance policy against falling apart. She died two years ago anyway."
David reached for her hand across the bar.
Outside, a summer storm broke. Lightning fractured the sky, and for a second, everything was white-hot and electric.
"My therapist says zombies are just people who've forgotten they can be alive again," David said.
The bartender set down their drinks. Lightning flashed again, and in the sudden illumination, Elena saw something she hadn't noticed in three years of hallway encounters: David wasn't smiling. He looked as hollowed out as she felt.
"We could not be zombies," she said.
"We could what?"
"I don't know. Start with something that's not vitamins and work."
Another lightning strike, closer this time. The thunder made the glasses on the bar shiver.
"Your place or mine?" David asked.
"Yours," she said. "Mine's full of takeout containers and a life I'm not living anymore."
They left their drinks unfinished. Some things were more important than maintenance.