What the Dog Knows

The elevator mirror showed her what she already knew: another strand of hair surrendering to gravity, gathering at her feet like fallen autumn leaves. Forty-two years old and running on coffee and panic, Maya felt like a corporate zombie—shuffling through meetings she couldn't remember, nodding at initiatives she didn't understand, signing off on deliverables that might as well have been written in Aramaic for all she comprehended them.

"You're asking me to present the quarterly strategy? To the board?" The voice in her phone belonged to David, her boss, who spoke in italics and exclamation points.

Maya's fingers found the gray hair at her temple, twisted it around her index finger. A nervous tic she'd developed three mergers ago. "Sure. Friday. Got it."

"You're a lifesaver, Maya-bear!"

She ended the call and slid down to the kitchen floor. Barnaby, her ancient golden retriever, hobbled over and rested his graying muzzle on her knee. His amber eyes, clouded with the milky haze of age, seemed to pierce through everything—her mortgage, her dead marriage to her career, the way she'd become allergic to genuine emotion sometime around her second promotion.

"You know, Barnaby," she whispered, burying her face in his warm, musty fur, "in a zombie apocalypse, they'd probably just walk right past me. 'Nothing left to eat here, boys. She's been dead inside for years.'"

Barnaby let out a long, ragged breath and rested his chin more heavily on her leg. Outside, the neighbor's toddler shrieked with delight. Someone was grilling onions. Life was happening, rich and messy and undeniable, and Maya was exhausted just witnessing it.

She sat there until her phone buzzed again. Another email. Another fire. Another day of playing zombie while her dog watched, knowing exactly what she'd become, loving her anyway.

"Good boy," she said, scratching behind his ears. "You're the only one who knows I'm already dead."