Dead Men Don't Curve

Marc stared at his reflection in the bathroom mirror at 2 AM — dark circles, gray skin, the unmistakable face of a man who'd been promoted to middle management and hollowed out from the inside. The corporate pyramid, it turned out, was built not of stone but of exhaustible souls, each level crushing the one beneath it.

He washed his hands and thought about baseball. Not the games he watched now, but the ones from college, when his arm could still throw a curve that made hitters look foolish, before he chose the safe path, the cubicle, the steady paycheck that had somehow become a prison sentence with a 401(k).

The door opened. Sarah walked in, looking equally dead.

"You're a zombie," she said, not unkindly. "We both are."

She was right. They'd been shuffling through their marriage for years, going through the motions, alive in the biological sense but something else entirely. The apartment was filled with things they'd accumulated to prove they were successful — artifacts of a life they weren't actually living.

"Remember when we talked about opening that bar?" Marc asked suddenly.

Sarah leaned against the doorframe, something flickering in her eyes that he hadn't seen in years. "You'd have the baseball games on. Every night."

"Every night."

"We'd be broke," she said.

"We'd be alive."

The truth hung there between them, heavy and undeniable. They'd built their little pyramid of security and comfort, and somewhere along the way, they'd forgotten what it was like to want something dangerous.

Marc took her hand. Her fingers were cold.

"Let's sell it," he said. "The apartment, the furniture, all this shit we don't need. Let's go somewhere where we can feel something again."

Sarah searched his face for something — fear, hesitation, sanity. Then she smiled, and for the first time in their decade together, Marc saw the person she'd been before he met her, before life had made them both into something that walked and talked but never quite woke up.

"You haven't pitched in fifteen years, Marc. You'll probably tear your rotator cuff."

"Probably," he said, and already felt less dead. "But at least I'll remember what it feels like to throw something that matters."