Drowning at Net Zero

Mira arrived at the office at 7:45 AM, already feeling like a zombie. The fluorescent lights flickered—an imperceptible strobe that no one else seemed to notice, but it made her skin crawl. She'd been working seventy-hour weeks since the merger, her creativity drained away drop by drop until she was moving through meetings on autopilot, nodding at PowerPoint slides she couldn't remember seeing.

"You look like hell," Julian said, sliding into the chair beside her in the breakroom. He was the only person who still spoke to her like a human being. "Still up for padel tonight?"

Padel. The word hit her like oxygen. Three times a week, she and Julian met at the club after work, the enclosed court becoming a sanctuary where the only things that mattered were the ball's trajectory and the satisfying thwack of her racket against the glass walls. In those sixty minutes, she wasn't a zombie anymore. She was alive, competitive, sweat stinging her eyes, muscles burning with effort.

"I'll be there," she said.

By 6 PM, her boss had dropped another emergency project on her desk. Something about the Manila office drowning in compliance issues—water metaphors in corporate-speak always made her want to scream. She considered canceling. The email was drafted, thumb hovering over send.

Then she deleted it.

The court was damp when they arrived, humidity clinging to everything. Julian served first, the ball ricocheting off the back wall. Mira returned it fiercely, her body remembering what her mind had tried to forget. They played in silence, the rhythm familiar, trusting, almost intimate.

She missed an easy volley at the net. "Shit. I'm sorry."

"You're distracted," Julian said, bouncing the ball. "Is it David?"

She didn't answer. Couldn't.

"Quit, Mira. You're not a zombie yet, but you're getting there."

They played harder after that, neither holding back. By the end, they were both drenched, uniforms clinging like second skins. They sat on the bench outside the court, drinking lukewarm water from plastic bottles, watching the sun dip below the skyline.

"I could transfer," she said finally. "The Singapore office."

"And leave me here alone?" Julian's laugh was hollow.

She looked at him—really looked at him—and something shifted. The exhaustion, the fear, the drowning sensation—it all crystallized into clarity.

"Or," she said, "we could both go."

Julian turned to her, water bottle paused halfway to his lips. The fluorescent zombies of corporate life seemed very far away.