Zombie State of Mind

The golden retriever stared at me from across the room, those soulful eyes demanding something I couldn't give — not anymore. Three weeks after Sarah left, taking her **padel** racket and half the furniture, I'd become something else entirely.

I moved through my days like a **zombie**, that particular breed of the walking dead that haunts open-plan offices and commuter trains. My colleagues noticed, I think. The way I'd spend entire meetings tracing the **cable** management beneath the conference table, following those serpentine cords as if they held the answer to why my marriage had imploded.

"You should get away," Linda from HR had suggested, her voice dripping with that toxic optimism reserved for people whose lives haven't collapsed. "Somewhere warm. Somewhere with **palm** trees."

So here I was, in Florida, where the humidity wrapped around me like a wet wool blanket. The resort's brochure had promised "paradise found," but paradise felt suspiciously like the Marriott bar at 2 AM, nursing a gin and tonic while the dog I'd brought along — Buster, Sarah's parting gift, a reminder of the family we'd planned — slept at my feet.

The **padel** courts outside my balcony window gleamed under floodlights at night. I watched couples play, laughing, moving in that familiar coordination that comes from years of shared intimacy. Sarah and I used to play weekends. We were terrible, but we were terrible together, which somehow made it perfect.

I checked my phone. No messages. Just the endless scroll of social media lives that looked better than mine. Another **cable** tethering me to the ghost of who I used to be.

Buster whined, nudging my hand with his wet nose. The unconditional love of a **dog** — the only thing in my life that hadn't changed, except that he now slept in an empty apartment most days while I worked late to avoid the silence.

"Yeah, buddy," I whispered, scratching behind his ears. "I know."

Tomorrow I'd go back. Not to the life I had, but to something. Maybe I'd take up **padel** again. Maybe I'd finally cut the **cable** TV subscription we'd shared for seven years. Maybe I'd even meet someone — or maybe I'd just learn to be alone without feeling like the walking dead.

The **palm** fronds rustled in the wind outside, and for the first time in weeks, something in my chest shifted. Not healing exactly. But movement.

Buster's tail thumped against the table leg. A small rhythm. A beginning.