Pyramid Season

The papaya sat on Elena's desk like a small, exotic judgment. At forty-three, she'd finally admitted that her dreams of becoming an artist had quietly dissolved somewhere between student loans and the corporate ladder's unforgiving climb. Now she was senior analyst at Stratagem Corp., standing atop her own personal pyramid of compromises.

"You still eating that rabbit food?" Marcus asked, leaning against her cubicle wall. He was twenty-eight, with the kind of careless confidence Elena remembered having before life had worn her smooth edges sharp.

"It's spinach, Marcus. And yes." She forced a smile, spearing another leaf. Her mother had died believing spinach would save her—right up until the cancer took her anyway.

The office was a pyramid scheme of the soul. Elena had spent two decades climbing it, trading pieces of herself for each promotion. The view from the top was supposed to be worth it. Instead, she mostly just saw other lonely people, perched on their own isolated peaks.

She took a bite of papaya. It was sweet, cloying, unfamiliar—like happiness she couldn't quite remember how to recognize.

"The water cooler talks about you," Marcus said, quieter now. "They say you're next for VP."

Elena looked at her computer screen, where her daughter's college tuition bill sat open. The corporate pyramid demanded fresh sacrifices. She sliced another piece of papaya, its juices running down her fingers like blood from an invisible wound.

"Tell them I'm already there," she said, and for the first time in years, Elena almost believed it. The pyramid had won. She would have her spinach and eat it too, somewhere far above the ground where she'd once planted seeds that never grew.