Orange Peel at the Edge of Everything

The fluorescent lights hummed their eternal note as Sarah stared at the spreadsheet, cell B47 glowing accusingly back at her. She'd been working at Merriweather Financial for three years, and somewhere around month eighteen, she'd realized she was effectively a zombie—not the undead kind that craved brains, but the corporate kind that craved nothing at all.

She peeled her third orange of the day, the citrus scent momentarily cutting through the stale office air. Her mother had always said oranges were for hope, for brightness. Sarah wasn't sure her mother had ever spent eight hours a day explaining to angry clients why their investments had underperformed.

"The market's being a total bull this week," her boss Roger had announced that morning, using the term with the same oblivious enthusiasm he brought to everything. Roger, who kept a bronze bull paperweight on his desk and referred to layoffs as 'streamlining synergies.' Roger, who'd once told Sarah she needed to show more 'sparkle' in her client presentations.

Sarah looked out the window. The sun was setting, painting the sky in impossible shades of coral and gold. She remembered having dreams once—before the zombie state had set in, before the hustle culture had convinced her that exhaustion was a badge of honor. She'd wanted to be an artist. She'd wanted to paint sunsets like this one.

Instead, she explained Excel formulas to men who made more in an hour than she made in a month.

Her phone buzzed. A text from her ex-boyfriend: "Saw your LinkedIn. Thinking of you."

Sarah deleted it without responding. Another ghost from another lifetime.

The orange peel in her hand had twisted into something resembling a heart. She placed it on her desk, a small act of rebellion against the fluorescent horizon. Tomorrow she'd wake up and do it all again. But for now, watching the last light fade from the sky, she allowed herself to remember that some zombies still remembered what it felt like to be alive.