The Corporate Undead

Maria pressed her palm against the cold glass of the thirty-seventh floor, watching the palm trees sway below like drunk dancers at a wedding she'd left early. Another Monday, another meeting about synergy that could have been an email.

"You look like a zombie," her colleague David whispered, leaning in too close. He smelled of expensive cologne and desperation. "Rough weekend?"

"Padel tournament," she lied, though she'd never picked up a racquet in her life. "My partner cancelled last minute."

David nodded sympathetically, though his eyes drifted back to his phone. Maria wondered if he'd ever really listened to anyone, or if he'd spent forty-five years perfecting the art of nodding while mentally calculating his stock options.

The conference room smelled of stale coffee and corporate despair. An orange sat on the table, someone's abandoned breakfast, its bright peel a violent shock of color against the beige everything. Maria stared at it, mesmerized by how something so vivid could exist in this room of grays.

Her phone buzzed. A text from her ex: "The dog misses you." She didn't reply. The dog—Buster—probably didn't miss her. Dogs were loyal like that, but also honest. Buster had always preferred Mark anyway. Men and dogs both sensed when you'd already left, weeks before you actually packed your bags.

"Maria? You with us?" The director was looking at her expectantly. Something about Q3 projections and paradigm shifts.

She thought about the palm trees again. How they stood tall while everything else bent in the wind. Maybe that was the trick—stay rooted, keep swaying, never break.

"Just thinking about that orange," she said, surprised by her own voice. "How it's the only alive thing in this room."

Silence. Then David laughed, that practiced, polite laugh that meant nothing and everything. The director moved on, but Maria kept watching the fruit, wondering if zombies could still recognize beauty, or if that was the first thing to go.