The Last Supper in Cairo

Marcus stared at his **palm**, tracing the lifeline that seemed to grow shorter each year. Forty-two, divorced, and climbing a corporate **pyramid** that felt more like a tomb with every promotion. The irony wasn't lost on him—here he was in Egypt, closing the deal of his career, while his soul had been dead for years.

The restaurant waiter placed a plate of wilted **spinach** before him, garnished with something that looked tragically optimistic. Marcus had ordered steak. He was too exhausted to send it back.

"You look like a **zombie**," Sarah said from across the table. She was twenty-six, brilliant, and still believed that climbing higher would mean seeing farther.

Marcus forced a smile. "That's the goal, isn't it? The higher you climb, the less you need to feel."

She didn't laugh. She'd stopped laughing three months ago, when she'd found him sitting in their dark living room at 4 AM, fully suited, staring at nothing.

"I'm not coming back," he said suddenly. The spinach grew cold.

Sarah's fork paused halfway to her mouth. "To the hotel?"

"To the life. Any of it."

Outside, the Nile reflected lights from a city that had seen empires rise and fall, people live and die, while Marcus had been busy making quarterly projections. He thought about his father's deathbed confession: *I wish I'd spent more time being nobody.*

"Okay," Sarah said softly. She reached across the table, her hand finding his. "Then let's disappear."

Marcus looked at his palm again, at the line that supposedly held his future. Some futures you had to carve yourself. The spinach could wait. The pyramid could collapse. For the first time in twenty years, Marcus was hungry.