Lightning in the Break Room

The eighth floor had become her tomb. Sarah pressed her forehead against the cool glass, watching lightning fork across the charcoal sky, each flash illuminating the hollows beneath her eyes in the reflection. Three years of mergers and metrics had hollowed her out, left her moving through meetings like a zombie—present, breathing, but fundamentally elsewhere.

"Storm's getting worse," Julian said, materializing beside her with two cafeteria containers. He'd stayed late too, again. His hair, previously the severe corporate-short she'd barely noticed, had grown out slightly, curling at his temples when he ran anxious hands through it. She'd started noticing things about him lately. Small things.

"I brought you dinner," he placed a container on the windowsill. "They were out of everything decent. It's... mostly spinach." He gestured vaguely at the wilted greens, then produced something from his pocket. "And I stole this orange from the executive bowl."

They sat cross-legged on the carpet, eating cold spinach with plastic forks, peeling the orange with sticky fingers. The lightning made them pause every few minutes—brief, electric halos around each other's faces.

"I'm going to quit," she said, the words foreign in her mouth. "I feel like I'm disappearing."

Julian stopped chewing. A strand of hair fell over his eye. "What would you do?"

"I don't know. Write. Garden. Exist somewhere that isn't this." She looked at him, really looked. "What about you? Why do you stay?"

"The spinach," he said, deadpan, then softened. "The oranges. Certain people." He didn't look away.

Another flash of lightning. This time, neither of them turned to the window.

"Tomorrow," she said, the word both threat and promise. "I'll give notice tomorrow."

"I'll come with you," he said. "If you want."

They finished the orange in silence, fingers occasionally brushing, electric as the storm outside. The zombie feeling had evaporated, replaced by something terrifying and alive. The lightning had struck, finally—after years of storms, it had found them.