Dead Man's Float

The corporate pool was empty at 2 AM, which was exactly why Marcus chose it. The water felt alive against his skin, a sharp contrast to the numbness that had defined his existence since the layoffs. He'd been swimming nightly for three weeks, trying to exhaust himself enough to sleep without the pills his doctor prescribed.

He surfaced from a lap to find someone standing at the pool's edge—a silhouette in the darkness. It was Chen from accounting, the guy everyone called 'The Machine' because he never seemed affected by the way Bennett, their division VP, bullied people into submission.

'You're still here,' Marcus said, treading water.

Chen sat on the edge, legs in the water. 'Living like a zombie isn't living, Marcus. We're both dead already. Just nobody's told us yet.' His voice was flat. 'Bennett called me a worthless piece of shit today. Said I should thank him for not firing me too.'

Marcus swam to the side, pulled himself up. 'What did you say?'

'Nothing. I stood there and took it. What else is there?' Chen's laugh was hollow. 'My wife thinks I'm working late. My kids probably forgot what I look like.' He slipped into the water, began floating on his back. 'Sometimes I think about just... not surfacing.'

'The pool's only four feet deep in the shallow end.'

'That's the joke, isn't it? Even my escape attempts are half-assed.'

Marcus watched Chen float, both of them suspended in that blue chemical water, corporate zombies reduced to bull session confessions at 2 AM. He thought about Chen's children, the pictures on his desk. Thought about his own empty apartment.

'My mother's sick,' Marcus said suddenly. 'I haven't visited her in six months. Keep telling myself I will, when things settle down.' He started swimming again, powerful strokes through the silence. 'But they never do settle, do they?'

'No,' Chen called from the water. 'They just get worse.'

Marcus swam until his arms burned, until he couldn't feel anything else. When he finally pulled himself out, Chen was gone—just wet footprints leading toward the lockers, already drying on the concrete. In the morning, Marcus would discover Chen's resignation letter on his desk. But tonight, he simply towelled off, zombie-tired and strangely weightless, and prepared to do it all again.