The Last Lunch Break

Marcus watched the steam rise from his microwave dinner—spinach and cheese, the kind that tastes like resignation. Another Tuesday in the fluorescent purgatory of the breakroom.

"You look like shit," Sarah said, sliding into the chair across from him. She'd been his work friend for three years, the kind of friend who knew his coffee order but not his dreams.

"I feel like a zombie," Marcus admitted, picking at his food. "I keep running this loop—wake up, commute, spreadsheets, sleep. I'm not even sure what I'm running toward anymore."

Sarah's dog, a golden retriever she'd brought in for emotional support day (the office was trying that now), rested its head on Marcus's knee. The animal looked at him with eyes that held more life than everyone in accounting combined.

"That's the thing about zombies," Sarah said, scratching behind the dog's ears. "They don't know they're dead. You still know."

The truth of it hit him like cold water. He was twenty-eight and already waiting for something that would never come. The promotion wouldn't fix him. The dating apps wouldn't save him.

Marcus stood up, leaving his half-eaten lunch on the table. The dog let out a soft whine.

"Where are you going?" Sarah called after him.

"I don't know," he said, and for the first time in years, it wasn't a lie. "But I think I'm done being a zombie."

He walked out of the breakroom, then out of the building, running toward something he couldn't name yet. Just running, finally, toward the possibility of being alive again.