The Art of Not Dying Inside

The morning sun spilled across the kitchen counter in shades of burnt orange, the same color as the prescription bottle I emptied into my palm. Vitamin D, the doctor had said. As if that could fix what forty years of compromise had broken.

I stood on the padel court at 6 AM, sweating through a game I'd taken up because my therapist said I needed "new neural pathways." Across the net stood Marcus—twenty-six, terrifyingly fit, and possessed of that bright-eyed optimism I'd once had before corporate life systematically dismantled it, piece by agonizing piece. "You're playing like a zombie today, Tom," he called out, grinning. He meant it as friendly banter. He didn't know how accurately he'd named the hollowed-out thing I'd become.

The confrontation with my supervisor still echoed. "You're not taking the bull by the horns, Thomas," he'd sneered yesterday, that phrase he wielded like a weapon against anyone who dared question his naked incompetence. I'd stared at his corporate art—the bronze bull charging symbolically against nothing—and felt nothing but the ancient weariness of a man who'd stopped expecting justice somewhere around 2012.

Marcus slammed the ball into the corner. I didn't move.

"You okay?"

The question hung there like something fragile. I looked at the orange slice he'd brought as a post-game snack, its vibrant flesh a shocking reminder of what life looked like when you weren't colouring inside the lines.

"I'm thinking about leaving," I said, the words foreign and terrifying on my tongue. "Everything. The job. The life that feels like wearing someone else's skin."

Marcus's grin faded into something like understanding. He picked up the orange, tore it apart.

"Then take the bull by the horns, Tom. Whatever that looks like for you."

The vitamin D bottle sat on my nightstand that evening, untouched. Some things you can't swallow. Some things you have to become.