Pyramid of Silent Screens

The corporate pyramid scheme had always been a joke in the office, but Marcus stopped laughing three months ago when he found himself at the bottom of it, watching the sunset paint the sky bruised orange through floor-to-ceiling windows. His iPhone buzzed on the mahogany desk—another notification from her. Or maybe it wasn't. He'd stopped checking.

"You look like a zombie," Sarah said, leaning against his doorframe. She was the only one in the department who still seemed alive. "That bullshit meeting about quarterly projections drained everyone."

Marcus shrugged. His skin felt too tight, like he was wearing someone else's existence. "Just tired."

"It's the orange light," she said, moving closer. "Makes everything look like the end of the world. Or maybe the beginning." She set her phone on his desk—face down, a deliberate choice that made his chest ache.

The corporate hierarchy above them hummed with expensive quiet. VPs behind glass walls, executives in corner offices, each level of the pyramid more removed from reality than the last. Marcus had stopped fighting against it. The zombie existence was easier than waking up.

Sarah's hand touched his shoulder. Warmth bled through his shirt. "My grandmother used to say oranges are sweetest right before they rot."

"That's dark."

"It's not about death. It's about timing." She turned him to face her. "About catching things before they're gone."

His iPhone lit up again. This time he saw her name—his ex-wife. She wanted to discuss the divorce settlement. The final dissolution of a life he'd built, then watched decay like forgotten fruit.

But Sarah was here. Real. Not a memory, not a notification. She stepped between him and the phone, the orange light catching copper in her hair. Something shifted in the pyramid of his chest—dominoes falling, reconfiguring.

"Let me buy you a drink," she said. "Before the rot sets in."

Marcus stood up. He left his phone on the desk, face up, its screen lighting the empty office like a small, dying star.