The Lightning and the Sphinx

The zombie sat across from me in the coffee shop, or at least that's what I called him now. Not because he was undead, but because he'd been hollowed out by the same corporate grind that had been eating me alive for seven years. Mark—my oldest friend, the one who once talked about opening a brewery in Colorado—now spent his Monday mornings reviewing compliance documents in a windowless office.

"You look like shit," Mark said, stirring his latte.

"Thanks. You too." I glanced at my watch. I had a meeting in twenty minutes with the sphinx herself—Elena from HR, who asked riddles instead of giving straight answers. Last week, when I'd asked about my promotion prospects, she'd smiled and said, "What walks on four legs in the morning, two legs at noon, and three legs in the evening?"

"Still thinking about Sarah?" Mark asked.

I shrugged. We'd broken up three months ago after she told me she couldn't love someone who was only half-present. She was right. I'd been going through the motions of my life like the living dead, addicted to routine, terrified of change.

"Remember that baseball game?" Mark said suddenly. "Senior year. Bottom of the ninth, you hit that triple and tore your hamstring rounding second?"

I did remember. I remembered the way the lightning had cracked the sky that afternoon, how the rain had started falling as I limped off the field, how everyone cheered anyway. I hadn't felt that alive in years.

"I quit yesterday," Mark said.

I looked up. "What?"

"The job. I'm done." He pulled a folded piece of paper from his jacket—resignation letter. "I've got savings. I'm going to do that brewery thing. Or maybe just travel. I don't know. But I'm not spending another decade as a zombie."

The lightning metaphor hit me then, sudden and sharp: we were all waiting for something to strike us, to wake us up. But nobody else was going to do it.

Outside, actual lightning splintered the sky, purple veins against grey clouds. And for the first time in three years, I picked up my phone and texted Sarah: *I think I'm ready to be whole again.*

Mark grinned. "There he is."