Corpse Pose at the Emerald Pyramid

The infinity pool at the Emerald Pyramid Resort stretched toward the horizon, a ribbon of blue suspended between desert and sky. Elena floated on her back, iPhone clutched in her hand like a rosary, while somewhere below the surface, the automated filtration system hummed its ceaseless prayer.

Three email notifications had arrived since she'd slipped into the water. Work. The merger. She'd told herself this trip would be different—no checking in, no being the corporate zombie who answered messages at midnight from a poolside cabana in Dubai. But there she was, forty-two years old and still afraid that if she stopped swimming, she'd drown.

"You look like you're waiting for something to die," a voice said.

Elena opened her eyes. A man stood at the pool's edge, maybe fifty, silver-haired, holding two drinks. His nametag identified him as Marcus from Corporate Strategy. She'd seen him in the pyramid—her name for the Dallas headquarters, its glass tiers gleaming like some modern tomb monument to ambition.

"Just waiting for myself to wake up," she said.

Marcus laughed, surprisingly genuine. "We're all zombies, aren't we? Walking around that pyramid, pretending to be alive. My ex-wife left me because I forgot how to be a person who didn't check his phone during sex."

He set the drinks on a table and sat on the edge, feet in the water. "My daughter sent me a photo yesterday. First day of senior year. She looked so alive. I stared at it through this"—he held up his own phone—"and realized I couldn't remember the last time I'd seen her eyes without a screen between us."

The water rippled around Elena's fingers. She thought of the pyramid, the endless escalators, the meetings where they discussed synergies while her mother lay dying in a hospital three states away. The zombie life, indeed.

"I quit," she said suddenly.

Marcus raised an eyebrow. "Now?"

"Now. Tonight. I'm going to email them from my room, then I'm turning this off." She held up her iPhone. "My mom had a stroke while I was on a conference call about market penetration in Southeast Asia. By the time I got to the hospital, she couldn't remember my name. But at least I'd hit my quarterly targets."

The desert wind carried the scent of chlorine and jasmine. For the first time in years, Elena felt something other than exhausted. She felt dangerous.

"I've got something in my room," Marcus said. "A bottle of scotch I've been saving for a special occasion. This feels like one, doesn't it? Two corpses, finally deciding to climb out of the pool?"

Elena smiled, and it wasn't the polite smile she used in boardrooms. "Tell me something first—when's the last time you did something that mattered?"

Marcus thought for a moment. "Eight years ago, I taught my daughter to swim. She was terrified. I told her the fear was just her body learning she could float. That she wouldn't sink unless she forgot how to breathe."

Elena pressed her iPhone to her chest, feeling its heartbeat against her ribs. "I think I forgot how to breathe somewhere around the time I made Director."

"Then let's start there," Marcus said. "Before we turn into the kind of zombies who can't even remember what we've lost."

They sat together as the desert sunset turned the Emerald Pyramid's glass facade to gold, two people suspended in the space between who they'd been and who they might still become. The water held them both.