The Art of Running in Place

Mara stood by the water cooler, watching the corporate world spin around her in fluorescent-lit circles. At forty-two, she'd mastered the art of looking busy while accomplishing absolutely nothing—a skill that had taken two decades of running away from her own ambitions.

"You're like a fox, you know," said Richard, the new senior VP, appearing beside her with his perpetually hopeful expression. "Always watching, always waiting."

Mara almost laughed. She wasn't waiting for anything. She'd given up on waiting years ago.

Richard's orange tie clashed horribly with his complexion—a detail that seemed to sum up everything wrong with their department. He was one of those men who believed enthusiasm could substitute for competence. The kind who called meetings "syncs" and email threads "dialogues." He meant it as a compliment, probably. He meant a lot of things.

"The CEO's asking about your project," Richard continued, oblivious to Mara's silence. "He's got that look in his eye. Like a bull ready to charge."

Mara finally turned to look at him. Her project—a meaningless initiative about optimizing workflow processes that she'd copied from a template three years ago and updated twice annually with synonyms for "efficiency." The CEO wouldn't know a workflow process if it walked into his office and demanded a raise.

"Richard," she said, and something in her voice made him stop smiling. "Do you ever wonder what we're actually doing here? Like, really doing?"

The question hung between them like something fragile and dangerous. She saw him consider it—really consider it—for the first time in his carefully curated career. Then his phone buzzed, and the moment collapsed like a house of cards in a hurricane.

"I should—" he gestured vaguely toward his office, already backing away.

Mara watched him go, then turned back to the water cooler. The plastic bottle made a soft plopping sound as she refilled her cup. Outside, the rain started falling, running down the windows in distorted rivulets that made the whole world look liquid, uncertain. For a moment she thought about calling her sister. She thought about the novel she'd started writing at twenty-eight. She thought about leaving.

Instead, she took a sip of water and walked back to her desk, where her next meeting would start in seven minutes. Some foxes weren't waiting for anything at all—they'd simply forgotten how to hunt.