The Last Pyramid Scheme

Maya stared at the iphone screen, the blue light washing over her face in the otherwise dark office. 3:47 AM. Another message from David: 'I can't do this anymore.' She didn't need to read the rest to know what it said—she'd received seventeen variations since the merger announcement.

Her cat, Barnaby, had chosen this exact moment to leap onto her desk, knocking over a framed photo from her first day at the firm. She'd been so proud then, standing before the corporate org chart—a perfect pyramid scheme of ambition, each rung promising more money, more meaning, more proof she'd made something of herself. Now the pyramid was collapsing, and she was the one expected to clean up the debris.

The bear market had arrived three months ago, and with it came the whispered conversations, the empty desks, the way executives stopped making eye contact in elevators. Tomorrow, she would deliver the news to her team. The same team she'd hired, mentored, celebrated with when they hit their quarterly targets. The same team whose children's names she knew, whose divorces she'd witnessed, whose careers she'd helped build into—yes—a small but functional pyramid of mutual success.

Barnaby butted his head against her hand, purring loudly. At least someone still wanted her around. She scratched behind his ears, feeling the strange dissonance of her cat's warmth against the cold dread spreading through her chest. The corporate restructuring plan called it 'optimization.' The business news sites called it 'market correction.' She called it what it was: murder.

Her iphone buzzed again. David this time, calling. She let it go to voicemail. What could she say? That she'd traded their relationship for a corner office and a pyramid scheme of upward mobility that turned out to be made of cards? That the bear had finally come for her, and she'd forgotten how to be anything other than prey?

Barnaby curled into a circle on the termination notices she was supposed to distribute at 9:00 AM. She envied him his simple, warm existence. Tomorrow, she would destroy people's lives. Tonight, she would pet her cat and pretend she wasn't already one of the ghosts haunting this building.