Dead Things Don't Play Padel

The corporate retreat had been Marcus's idea—the kind of forced fun that made Elena want to walk into the ocean and keep going. She adjusted her straw **hat**, the brim shielding eyes that hadn't slept properly in three months. Inside, she felt like a **zombie** going through the motions of life: emails, meetings, the hollow performance of productivity.

"You coming?" David called from the **padel** court. He was smiling—of course he was smiling. David always smiled, even when he'd delivered the news that her department was being "restructured." Now he wanted to play friendly matches, pretend the knife wasn't still twisting in her back.

The **water** cooler beside the court hummed with institutional cheer. Elena's reflection showed someone she barely recognized: thirty-eight, excellent at her job, increasingly excellent at pretending everything was fine.

"Actually," she said, "I think I'll sit this one out."

David's smile faltered for a microsecond—just long enough to confirm he knew exactly what he'd done to her career. "Suit yourself. More fun for us."

She watched them play: colleagues laughing, bonding, while she stood on the sidelines in her stupid hat, thinking about how easily some people moved through the world while others just survived it. The ball hit the fence with a satisfying thwack.

Later, she'd send the email she'd been drafting for weeks. She'd request that transfer to the London office. She'd start over. But for now, Elena simply watched the game she refused to play, sipping lukewarm **water** from a plastic cup, feeling something stir inside her dead chest—not hope exactly, but something like the first twitch of a finger that had fallen asleep.

Alive-ish was still alive.