The Hierarchy of Empty Rooms

The cat watches me from the windowsill as I polish my padel racket, its golden eyes unimpressed by my expensive equipment. Another Tuesday evening, another match with the regional directors. My wife Sarah used to call these 'networking sessions' before she left, taking the dog and half the furniture, leaving only Barnaby—the cat—and this increasingly hollow life I've built.

On the court, Marcus serves hard against the glass wall. The ball ricochets back at me, and I return it with a satisfying thwack. Sweat drips down my back as we play, but my mind is elsewhere—on the presentation I watched this morning, the one about the new 'investment opportunity' circulating through the department.

"It's not a pyramid scheme," Marcus had said earlier, his hand on my shoulder, his cologne mixing with the locker room smell. "It's about leveraging your network. About building your personal brand."

But I recognize the structure. I've seen it before—in the organizational charts, in the way promotions work, in the subtle understanding that everyone above me needs someone below them to stay above. We're all climbing someone else's ladder, convincing ourselves it's a staircase.

Barnaby is waiting by the door when I return, meowing insistently. I pour him food, watch him eat with the straightforward pleasure of a creature who never has to pretend to understand things he doesn't. Never has to nod enthusiastically in meetings about paradigms and synergies and 'revolutionary income streams.'

The pyramid they're selling isn't marked as such. It's called an 'entrepreneurial development network,' but the mathematics are the same. You recruit five people, they recruit five more, and somewhere at the top, someone gets rich while the foundation struggles to hold the weight.

I sit on the floor with Barnaby, his purr vibrating against my chest. Sarah's email is open on my phone: "I think you've forgotten what it feels like to be real."

She's right. Somewhere between the padel matches and the PowerPoint presentations, I've become someone I don't recognize. Someone who considers joining a system I know will hurt others, just to maintain a position I'm not sure I ever wanted.

Barnaby butts his head against my chin, demanding to be fed again, and in this simple need, I recognize something I've lost: the courage to want things that are real.