Corporate Undead

The fluorescent lights hummed their eternal complaint as Marcus stared at his computer screen, feeling like a corporate zombie—shambling through meetings, responding to emails with automatic efficiency, his soul slowly eroding by the hour. At 42, he'd mastered the art of appearing alive while being dead inside.

"Your vitamin D levels are critically low," Dr. Chen had said that morning, sliding the lab results across her desk with practiced concern. "You're not getting enough sunlight, Marcus. You're not getting enough *life*."

He'd laughed it off, picked up the prescription, and returned to his cubicle. Now his phone vibrated—Elena. His wife. She'd been distant lately, coming home late from her padel games with colleagues, her phone always face down.

"Running late," her text read. "Don't wait up."

Marcus stared at the message until the words blurred. Something had shifted between them months ago—a thinning of trust, a growing silence that filled their bed like cold air. He'd chalked it up to stress, to the mortgage, to the relentless grind of two careers in a city that never stopped demanding more.

But then came the afternoon he'd opened her laptop to print boarding passes for their anniversary trip. A notification had popped up: encrypted messages from a number he didn't recognize, using an app that deleted everything after reading. His stomach had dropped.

He'd become what he never thought he'd be: a spy in his own marriage.

Now, in the dead hours of the night, Marcus found himself running—not for exercise, but because he couldn't sleep. His sneakers hit the pavement in rhythm, his breath forming clouds in the chilled autumn air. He ran past their favorite restaurant, past the park where they'd picnicked two summers ago, past the life they'd built together that now felt paper-thin.

When he returned, Elena was sitting at the kitchen table in the dark.

"We need to talk," she said.

Marcus stood in the doorway, sweat cooling on his skin, his heart pounding from more than the run. "I know," he said. "I've known for weeks."

She looked up, and in the dim light, he saw the exhaustion in her eyes—not the exhaustion of betrayal, but of carrying something alone.

"It's not what you think," she said quietly. "I didn't want to tell you until I was sure."

She slid a piece of paper across the table. Medical results. She was sick. The late nights, the secrets, the padel games—it was all doctor's appointments she didn't want him to worry about.

Marcus sank into the chair opposite her. All the anger, all the suspicion, all the poison he'd been carrying dissolved into something else: grief, and love, and the terrible recognition that they were both just trying not to become zombies, each in their own way.

"We'll face it," he said, reaching across the table. "Whatever it is. Together."