The Last Interview
The fluorescent lights hummed above Mara's head as she adjusted her name tag, the little rectangle bearing her title like a shackle. She straightened her blazer—orange, a bold choice she'd made during a brief rebellion against corporate beige—and checked her reflection in the glass doors. Thirty-seven years old, and she still felt like an imposter at these things.
Inside the conference room, the sphinx-like interviewer waited. His name was Richard, according to his placard, but his expression revealed nothing. He wore a hat indoors, a peculiar gray fedora that seemed less like fashion and more like armor.
"So," he said, tapping his pen against the table. "Tell me about your gap year."
Mara's throat tightened. The year she'd spent caring for her dying mother wasn't exactly a gap, but explaining that meant explaining hospice and grief and the way time had warped. She felt like a zombie going through the motions, reciting lines she'd practiced in mirrors.
"I took time to... regroup. Reassess my priorities."
"Bear with me," Richard said, leaning forward. "I need to understand why you left such a promising trajectory."
The word hung between them. Bear. She'd had to bear her mother's weight when she could no longer walk, bear the silences, bear the nights when morphine wasn't enough. She'd become expert at bearing.
Mara stood up. The interview clock ticked loudly on the wall.
"You know what?" she said, surprising herself. "I can't do this anymore."
Richard's expression cracked—a chink in the sphinx's armor.
"Excuse me?"
"I'm tired of pretending I'm someone else. Tired of the orange blazer and the rehearsed answers and acting like I haven't spent the last year learning what actually matters." Mara picked up her bag. "My mother died thinking I was happy in that career. I'm not doing that to her memory."
She walked out, the orange blazer bright against her skin like fresh paint. Outside, the air tasted like rain and possibility. For the first time in a year, she didn't feel like a zombie at all.