The Last Orange

Sarah peeled the orange at her desk, the citrus scent cutting through the recycled air of the 42nd floor. Around her, the other analysts tapped at keyboards with the synchronized efficiency of worker bees, though she preferred to think of them as what they actually were: corporate zombies. Not the brain-eating kind, but something worse—people who had forgotten what it meant to be alive.

Her phone buzzed. Tom. Again.

'You coming tonight?'

She stared at the message. Three years ago, she would have been excited. Now, the thought of another evening pretending to care about promotion tracks and market trends made something in her chest seize up. Tom was sweet. He deserved someone who could still feel excitement about things.

The orange sections were bright against her keyboard. She ate one, the juice bursting—shockingly, overwhelmingly alive. When was the last time she'd tasted anything this vivid? Her meals had become fuel, consumed without thought or pleasure. Her weekends were recovery periods, not adventures. She was thirty-four and already nostalgic for a version of herself that had ceased to exist.

Her manager walked by. Melanie had the glazed, thousand-yard stare of someone who'd stopped asking why years ago. Sarah used to be afraid of becoming her. Now she wondered if the transformation had already occurred, quietly, while she was busy hitting her targets.

Sarah picked up the hat she'd bought during that brief, doomed attempt to take up painting. It was ridiculous—floppy, artistic, entirely inappropriate for corporate America. But it was hers. It represented something: a person who made things, who felt things, who wasn't afraid to be ridiculous in service of being real.

She typed back to Tom: 'Not tonight. But ask me again next week. I might be different by then.'

Hearts appeared instantly. He really was sweet.

Sarah stood up. The zombies kept typing. She dropped her badge on her desk—she'd come back for her things later, or not. She put on the hat, grabbed the rest of her orange, and walked toward the elevator.

For the first time in three years, she wasn't hungry.