Corporate Mythology

The office hummed with that familiar, fluorescent silence that makes you question your life choices. I stood by the breakroom microwave, watching my spinach turn into a sad, wilted version of itself. Again.

"You're still here?" Marcus appeared behind me, looking like what HR politely called 'disengaged' but what everyone knew was a zombie in everything but flesh-eating appetite. His eyes had that glazed-over look of someone who'd seen too many quarterly projections.

"Project Sphinx," I said, by way of explanation. "They want the deck by midnight."

Marcus snorted. "The Sphinx. Christ. Remember when that actually meant something? When it was going to be our product? Now it's just a catch-all for 'make the numbers look less catastrophic.'"

He was right, of course. Sphinx had started as our revolutionary AI project two years ago. Now it was a corporate shibboleth—a silent question we all pretended wasn't demanding answers we couldn't provide.

"I ran into David in the elevator," Marcus continued, leaning against the counter. "He actually used the phrase 'we're all in this together.' With a straight face. That man's worth more than our entire department combined, and he still has to bear the burden of pretending we're not actively sinking."

"David's not the problem," I said, though we both knew he kind of was. "He's just... good at the performance."

"Performance." Marcus shook his head. "That's what we are now. Performative employees. And I'm exhausted. I'm forty-two years old and I'm eating alone in a breakroom at 8 PM while my daughter probably thinks I work at a hospital instead of a software company."

The microwave beeped. My spinach was done. Steam curled up in that pathetic way that reminds you of your own mortality.

"My wife asked me this morning if I'm happy," I said, the words escaping before I could stop them. "I couldn't answer. I just stood there brushing my teeth, staring at myself in the mirror like I was a stranger."

Marcus looked at me then, really looked at me, and for a moment the zombie mask slipped. I saw something underneath—fear, maybe. Recognition.

"Nobody's happy here, Elena. They're just not actively dying. That's what passes for success these days."

He pushed off the counter. "Go home. Let Sphinx die its quiet death. Whatever happens tomorrow, happens."

I watched him walk away, his posture already settling back into that familiar slump. My spinach sat there, steaming and virtuous and completely unappetizing. For a moment, I considered Marcus's advice. Just walk away. Let it all collapse.

Instead, I took the container to my desk. Because that's what we do. We bear it. We bear it all, one wilted leaf at a time.