The Corporate Pyramid

Elena stood at the baseline of the padel court, her racquet loose in her grip. The glass walls reflected the Houston skyline—steel and glass pyramids climbing toward a sky the color of old paper. Across the net, Marcus, the department's resident bull, served with enough force to make her wince. He was everything she wasn't: loud, aggressive, relentlessly optimistic about the company's future.

"You're missing it, El," he called out, wiping sweat from his forehead. "The V.P. spot is yours if you want it. You just need to charge."

The ball ricocheted off the back wall. Elena didn't move.

Later, over lunch at her desk, she picked at a spinach salad that had gone warm and limp. Her computer screen displayed the organizational chart—a perfect pyramid scheme of ambition and exhaustion. Twenty years of climbing, and what did she have? A corner office with western exposure, a LinkedIn profile that impressed strangers, and a condo so pristine it felt like a showroom.

Her phone buzzed. A message from Richard: *My wife knows. Don't call me.*

Elena pushed the spinach away. The affair had been her one act of rebellion—stupid, reckless, brief. Now it was over, leaving her with nothing but the taste of something spoiled.

At home, her cat, Barnaby, wound around her ankles, demanding dinner. She'd rescued him from a shelter three years ago—scrawny, scarred, missing half an ear. He'd needed her. That was the whole of it, really.

She filled his bowl, then opened a bottle of wine. The pyramid on her screen—next quarter's projections, team structures, endless growth—glowed back at her. Marcus's words echoed: *Just need to charge.*

Barnaby purred against her leg, solid and warm and entirely unimpressed with corporate pyramids or bullish ambition. Tomorrow she'd resign. Tonight, she'd finish the wine and let herself feel something real.

Outside, Houston hummed with the relentless energy of people still climbing, still charging toward peaks that didn't exist. Elena pressed her face into Barnaby's fur and breathed him in—musk and dust and the faint scent of something alive.