Running From the Bull

At 3 AM, Maya found herself running through the empty streets of Chicago, her breath streaming in the cold air like ghosts escaping her chest. Thirty-two years old and she already felt like a zombie — that peculiar corporate undead state where you're technically alive but everything essential has been eaten away by spreadsheets and performance reviews.

The phone had buzzed twenty minutes ago. Alex, her former college roommate and the only friend who still called instead of texting, was in crisis again. His startup was drowning. The bull market had turned, investors were circling like sharks, and he was considering something drastic.

"Running," he'd said. "Just running. From everything."

Maya slowed to a walk outside an all-night diner, steam rising from vents like industrial breath. She understood that specific kind of running — not exercise, but escape. She'd been doing it for years: running from the realization that her finance career made her feel like a fraud, running from the way her mother looked at her with disappointed pride, running from the mirror that showed someone she didn't recognize anymore.

The zombie metaphor wasn't far off. zombies ate brains; Maya's job had been eating her soul for six years, and she hadn't even noticed until there was almost nothing left.

She thought about Alex's call. The bull — that symbol of aggressive market optimism that had fueled his company's rise — was now goring him. He'd bet everything on momentum, on the myth that growth could substitute for meaning. Now the bill was coming due.

Maya started running again, harder this time. Her lungs burned. Her legs ached. For the first time in months, she felt something real.

"Alex," she said aloud, testing the weight of his name. "Friend."

The word felt heavy, important. Friends didn't let friends run alone. Friends didn't let friends become zombies.

She turned toward his apartment, pickup up her pace. Whatever came next — whether Alex's startup survived or crashed, whether Maya finally quit her job or found another year's worth of excuses — they'd face it together. Some running you did toward things, not away from them.

Her phone buzzed again. Alex this time: "You up?"

"Running over," she typed back. "Don't do anything stupid."

Ahead, the city lights blurred into streaks of gold and amber. For once, the zombie felt hungry for something real.