What the Cat Saw

The spinach lay rotting in my refrigerator, a small green science experiment I'd been ignoring since March. Everything in my apartment was rotting, really. I'd become a zombie of my former self since the layoff—moving through rooms on automatic pilot, showering only when I remembered what day it was, answering phone calls with a voice that didn't sound like mine anymore.

Only my cat, Mortimer, seemed to notice the transformation. He'd taken to sitting on my chest at 3 AM, staring into my eyes with an intensity that felt accusatory. As if he knew I'd died already and just hadn't fallen down yet.

Then Elena called. Three years divorced, now working at a hospice facility downtown. "I need someone to feed her mother's cat while she—while she transitions."

Her mother was transitioning, we both understood. Not to another job. To the other thing.

The mother's apartment smelled of boiled cabbage and old paper. Her calico watched me from a bookshelf filled with romance novels and prayer books. On the kitchen counter: fresh spinach, arranged in a glass bowl like a centerpiece. Someone still bought groceries here. Someone still believed in tomorrow.

The mother, frail beneath embroidered sheets, grabbed my wrist with surprising strength. "You're one of them, aren't you?" she whispered. "The walking dead."

The realization knocked the wind out of me. She saw it—the zombie shuffle, the dead eyes, the soul that had packed its bags months ago.

"I eat spinach sometimes," I said, and it sounded like a confession.

"Good," she said. "Keep doing that. Green things. They remind you you're still alive."

Mortimer was waiting on my windowsill when I got home. I boiled fresh spinach from the grocery store, sprinkled it with salt, ate it standing over the sink. Green things. Proof I wasn't gone yet.

The cat jumped to the counter, circled my legs, purred. For the first time in months, something vibrated inside my chest that wasn't just hollow.

"Not yet," I whispered to Mortimer. "Not yet."

He blinked slowly, approving.

Outside, the city hummed with people who hadn't figured it out yet—how easy it was to die without leaving. I washed my bowl, turned off the light. Tomorrow, I'd buy more spinach. Tomorrow, I'd remember what it felt like to want things.

Mortimer followed me to bed, settling against my side like an anchor. The zombie would have to wait. I wasn't done being alive.