The Endurance of Empty Things

The corporate retreat had been Marcus's idea. Something about team building and breaking down silos. Now he stood on the padel court at nine in the morning, sweating through his polo shirt while his colleagues whooped and slammed balls against the glass walls. He hadn't played in years, had no interest in learning, but here he was—running sideways, lunging for shots he'd never reach, performing enthusiasm like a court jester in a kingdom he'd stopped believing in.

Afterward, at the buffet, he watched them pile their plates. He reached for the spinach, raw and glistening with what he hoped was merely water. His wife had been pushing him to eat better since his last physical. 'You're not thirty anymore, Marcus,' she'd said, and she wasn't wrong. He was forty-eight, and every morning he woke to the same ceiling, the same hollow weight in his chest, the same familiar feeling that he was already dead and simply hadn't had the courtesy to lie down.

That word—zombie—had surfaced unbidden during his session with Dr. Patel on Tuesday. 'You describe yourself as walking through your days on autopilot,' she'd noted. 'Have you considered that grief for your father never really resolved? That perhaps you've been—'

'Existentially undead,' he'd finished, and they'd both laughed, but the laugh had caught in his throat like something rotten.

Now his phone buzzed. His boss, wanting to discuss Q3 projections. Marcus set the device face down on the table. Something cracked inside him, something that had been held together by routine and obligation and the terrifying momentum of a life in motion.

He stood up, leaving his half-eaten plate behind. Outside, the sun was just beginning to burn through the morning fog. He started running—not toward anything, but away. Not the measured jogging he did on weekends, but the desperate, clumsy running of a man who has suddenly remembered he has legs. His lungs burned. His heart hammered against his ribs like something alive, at last, alive, and for the first time in years, Marcus could feel himself catching up.