The Graveyard Shift

I am becoming a zombie. Not the movie kind — I don't eat brains or stumble through corridors groaning. My kind is worse: the corporate lawyer who's been awake for 72 hours, operating on caffeine and spite, moving through the glass-walled offices like something that only resembles human.

3:47 AM. My iPhone buzzes on the mahogany desk, illuminating another email from the client who never sleeps. Marcus, the M&A partner who has mentored me for seven years, who called me a "golden retriever" in my first year because I'd do anything for the job. Now I'm his favorite attack dog, the one he sics on impossible deals that destroy people's lives for profit.

The office aquarium glows in the corner. Three goldfish swim in endless circles, their mouths opening and closing in silent screams. I've named them: Marcus, Me, and The Version of Me Who Once Had Dreams. The latter is floating upside down today.

"You're still here?"

I jump. The night security guard stands in my doorway — a massive man, beard wild enough that he could be mistaken for a bear in the right light. His nametag says DAVID. I've never spoken to him before. We're not supposed to.

"Just finishing some work," I say, like always.

He steps inside. "You've been here every night this week. I've watched you on the cameras."

The hairs on my neck rise. Not from fear. From the shame of being seen.

"I have a deadline."

"I was a corporate lawyer once," David says. "Fifteen years. Then one morning I woke up and couldn't remember my daughter's middle name. That was the day I became a bear instead."

"A bear?"

"I moved to a cabin. Grew the beard. Stopped shaving. Started scaring people instead of ruining them." He gestures to my phone, which has buzzed again. "That thing is your leash. You know that, right?"

I look at the iPhone. The screen shows another email: *Urgent: Need response by 5 AM.*

"Why are you telling me this?"

"Because you look in the mirror and don't recognize yourself anymore." He pauses. "I watched you stare at those fish for twenty minutes yesterday. You weren't thinking about work. You were thinking about jumping."

The room tilts. I grip the desk.

"I'm not—"

"I saw it. I see a lot of things in this building at night." He pulls a card from his pocket. Not a business card. A battered index card with a phone number. "There's a cabin next to mine. For rent. No service. No emails at 3 AM. Just you and whatever's left of the person you used to be."

He turns to leave, then stops. "The goldfish are dead, by the way. They've been dead for weeks. You just haven't been looking close enough."

He walks out. I stand up, my legs trembling, and approach the tank. The fish aren't swimming. They're caught in the filter's current, bodies stiff, eyes staring. Like me.

I pick up my iPhone. Marcus's latest email glows on screen: *Where are you?*

I type: *I'm sorry. I can't do this anymore.*

Then I walk out, leaving the phone on the desk, the zombie offices behind me, toward the man who might teach me how to become a bear.