Dead Dogs Don't Ask Questions

The fluorescent lights hummed their funeral dirge as Marcus stared at the sphinx of a problem on his monitor. The riddle wasn't ancient Greek — it was the quarterly projection report, due at midnight, and he'd been staring at the same spreadsheet for six hours.

"Another zombie in the machine," Sarah murmured, sliding into the adjacent cubicle.

She meant the new junior associate, some fresh graduate who'd already begun the corporate metamorphosis — eyes glazing over, soul leaching out through earbuds, transforming into another office undead. But Marcus knew the truth: he was the zombie.

He adjusted his grandfather's fedora, the one he wore to feel tethered to something authentic in this sterile ecosystem. The hat was his armor, his quiet rebellion against the business casual dress code that demanded conformity.

"You know what my ex said when he left?" Sarah continued, not waiting for an answer. "He said I was like a dog that couldn't stop barking at the mailman. Always making noise about things that didn't matter."

Marcus swiveled his chair. Sarah's mascara had run hours ago, leaving black tributaries down her cheeks. She was thirty-two, brilliant, and hollowed out by the same machinery that processed them both into useful components.

"The mailman always comes back," Marcus said. "That's the problem."

"The sphinx asks its riddle, but at least it lets you pass when you answer correctly." She gestured at the empty office floor. "This place? It just keeps asking."

Their boss's golden retriever, who sometimes accompanied him to work, had died the previous week. Marcus had found himself genuinely grieving for that dog — the only living thing in this building that never pretended anything.

"I'm going to do it," Sarah said suddenly. "I'm quitting. I'm going to open that bakery we talked about in 2019."

Marcus wanted to believe her. He really did. But they'd had this conversation six times in three years.

"That's great," he said, and meant it as much as he'd meant anything since his promotion to senior analyst.

The sphinx on his screen remained unsolved. The zombie in the mirror stared back. And tomorrow, like the mailman, it would all return.

But for tonight, under the fluorescent funeral lights, they sat in silence — two dead dogs, howling at nothing.