Dead Men Walking

The ball hit the padel racket with a satisfying *thwack*, bouncing off the glass wall and returning to Marcus's side of the court. His opponent—Gary from Accounting—panted heavily, his face flushed with exertion. Marcus should have been focused on the game, but his thoughts kept drifting to his iPhone, which sat abandoned on the bench. Six missed calls from Elena. Twelve texts from his mother about the funeral arrangements.

"Your serve, man," Gary called out, wiping sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand.

Marcus nodded mechanically, his body moving through the familiar motions while his mind remained elsewhere. He'd come on this corporate retreat to escape, but the Puerto Rican resort offered no real sanctuary—only a different kind of prison with better lighting and complimentary margaritas.

Later, floating on his back in the infinity pool, Marcus stared up at the bruised purple sky. The water cradled him like an amniotic fluid, everything weightless and muffled beneath the surface. For a moment, he could almost forget that his marriage was over, that his father was dead, that he'd been promoted to a position that required eighty-hour weeks and a soul he wasn't sure he possessed anymore.

"You look like a zombie," a woman's voice said from the pool's edge.

Marcus tilted his head back. It was Sarah from HR, holding two glasses of wine. Her mascara had run slightly, giving her the appearance of someone who'd been crying—or perhaps sweating in the humid tropical air.

"Feel like one too," he said, treading water. "What gave me away?"

"The thousand-yard stare during the team-building exercises. The way you check your phone like it's a bomb that might detonate." She sat on the edge, dipping her feet into the water. "My therapist calls it emotional disassociation. I call it being thirty-five in corporate America."

Marcus swam to the edge and pulled himself up, water streaming from his body. The iPhone on the nearby table lit up with another notification. He didn't look.

"My father died Tuesday," Marcus said, the words leaving his mouth before he could stop them. "And my wife left me Wednesday. Friday, I got on a plane for this fucking retreat."

Sarah's expression softened. She extended one of the wine glasses toward him.

"We're all zombies, Marcus. Some of us are just better at applying moisturizer."

He took the glass, their fingers brushing. In the distance, he could hear the rhythmic *thwack* of padel games continuing, the artificial cheerfulness of corporate team building pressed against the reality that none of them were really living at all.