Corporate Undead

Maria adjusted the fedora she'd begun wearing to board meetings, a calculated accessory that said eccentric creative rather than what she actually was: forty-two and exhausted enough that her hair had started thinning six months ago. The stress shedding had been subtle at first, then alarming. Now she kept the bald patches hidden beneath increasingly elaborate headgear, performing professionalism like theater.

"You're working late again," said Daniel from the doorway. He was the department's golden boy, thirty-two and still possessed of that terrible energy, that belief that effort equaled results. He didn't seem to notice—or perhaps didn't care—that Maria had become a zombie, moving through her days on autopilot, clicking through spreadsheets while her actual self watched from somewhere far away, amused and horrified in equal measure.

"Just finishing the Q3 projections," Maria said, though they were already done. Had been for hours. She stayed because going home meant facing the empty rooms, the silence that had settled after Richard moved out. "You should head home."

Daniel lingered. "I started running again. My doctor says my cholesterol is—well, never mind. But I was wondering if you'd want to join me sometime? There's a trail by the river."

Maria almost laughed. Running. As if she wasn't already running constantly—running from the memories, running toward deadlines that didn't matter, running through the years like they were something to be completed rather than lived.

"I haven't run since college," she said.

"It's never too late," Daniel said, with the earnestness of someone who still believed in redemption through self-improvement. "Saturday morning? Six a.m.?"

She found herself agreeing, which was how she ended up on a riverside path at dawn, wearing running shoes she'd ordered at midnight and the fedora because she couldn't bear to be seen without it. Daniel was already there, stretching, looking irritatingly awake.

They ran together in silence for the first mile. Maria's lungs burned. Her body protested every step. And then, somewhere around mile two, something shifted. The pain became almost meditative. The rhythmic thud of feet against pavement synced with her heartbeat. For the first time in months, she wasn't a zombie going through motions. She was simply, painfully, alive.

"Your hat," Daniel said between breaths. "You're going to overheat."

Maria pulled it off, felt the cool air against her scalp, exposed. She waited for shame, but instead found herself laughing—really laughing, a sound she barely recognized. Daniel slowed beside her, grinning, surprised.

"What?"

"I've been hiding," she said, running faster now, running toward something instead of away. "I've been hiding for so long I forgot there was anything else worth being."