Zombies on the Padel Court

Mara stood at the baseline of the padel court, her racquet dangling like a dead thing in her hand. Across the net, Tomas wiped sweat from his forehead with the mechanical rhythm of someone who'd performed this action a thousand times before.

"Your serve," he said, and she thought: not my husband anymore. Just another zombie in our three-year apocalypse.

The storm had been threatening all afternoon, the sky bruising purple and black above Madrid's skyline. Mara's phone had buzzed twenty minutes ago — work, asking if she could come in early tomorrow. She'd ignored it, just as she'd ignored the fact that Tomas had moved into the guest bedroom three weeks ago.

She served. The ball hit the wire fence instead of the court. Tomas didn't even sigh.

"Do you remember," she asked, "when we used to actually play this game?"

He shrugged. "Before the layoffs. Before your mother got sick. Before we both started working sixty-hour weeks just to afford this apartment with its stunning view of other people's apartments."

A thought occurred to her: when had they become these creatures? These office workers who shuffled through corridors with dead eyes, these commuters who pressed flesh against strangers in subway cars without feeling anything? Their lives had become a series of motions performed without intention. Love, too.

"My brother invited us to his place this weekend," Tomas said, bouncing the ball. "He's got a new cat. Some expensive breed. I told him we'd probably be too tired."

"Yes," Mara said. "We're always too tired."

Lightning fractured the sky. For a moment, everything was illuminated — the empty stands, the net between them, the resignation etched into both their faces. The first cold drops of rain began to fall.

"We should go," Tomas said.

"In a minute."

Mara walked to the net. Tomas hesitated, then joined her. They stood there as the rain intensified, two people who'd forgotten how to be alive together, while lightning continued to reveal everything they refused to say.

"I asked for a transfer," she said finally. "Barcelona. I hear they have good padel courts there."

Tomas studied her face for the first time in weeks. "Alone?"

"I don't know yet."

The cat would have to wait. The zombies were finally waking up.