The Corporate Pyramid
The office hummed with that familiar fluorescent-lit lethargy, the kind that turned ambitious thirty-somethings into something resembling the walking dead. Marcus watched from his cubicle as colleagues shuffled past, eyes glazed, clutching lukewarm coffee like it was the only thing keeping them vertical. Zombie wasn't the right word—it was too dramatic. But something inside him had certainly died since he'd joined this corporate pyramid scheme three years ago.
He'd skipped lunch again. The spinach salad from yesterday's failed meal prep sat wilting in his desk drawer, mocking his ambition to be the kind of person who packed healthy lunches. Instead, he'd spent his hour at the park across the street, watching old men play baseball. Something about the crack of the bat, the way they moved with purpose even in their seventies, made him ache with a nostalgia he couldn't quite place.
"You coming to drinks Friday?" Sarah leaned against his cubicle wall, twirling a water bottle between her fingers. Her smile didn't reach her eyes anymore.
Marcus shook his head. "Can't. Lisa's got that thing."
"Right. The thing." She paused. "You know, we used to be fun."
"We still are," he lied.
She walked away, and he watched the water in her bottle slosh rhythmically, a tiny ocean trapped in plastic. That's what they all were—trapped in something transparent, pretending they had freedom of movement.
His phone buzzed. A reminder: anniversary dinner. Seven o'clock.
The pyramid reorganized again last quarter. More layers, more middle management, more people between Marcus and anything resembling actual work. He'd stopped caring about promotions six months ago. Now he just wanted to make it to retirement without completely disappearing.
The baseball game ended. One old man tipped his cap to another. They laughed about something, genuine and warm, and Marcus realized he couldn't remember the last time he'd laughed like that.
He opened his desk drawer. The spinach smelled faintly of surrender. But there, beneath the rotting greens, he found the crumpled brochure from the pottery class Lisa had mentioned months ago.
The zombie inside him stirred, just a little. Maybe it wasn't dead. Maybe it was just waiting.
He texted Lisa: *Let's do that class.*
She replied instantly: *I thought you'd never ask.*