The Lightning Strike

Marcus ran his fingers through thinning hair, staring at his reflection in the bathroom mirror. At forty-seven, the strands were surrendering, just like everything else in his life. The corporate behemoth where he'd spent two decades had finally succeeded in what hostile takeovers couldn't — it had turned him into a zombie.

He'd stopped feeling anything years ago. The divorce had been the final nail, or maybe it was the third restructuring in five years. Now he moved through days like a corpse that hadn't received the memo, attending meetings where executives spouted bullshit about synergy while eliminating entire departments.

"You good, Marcus?" asked Janice from Accounting, lighting a cigarette outside the building despite the No Smoking sign. Her own gray hair escaped in wild wisps, defying corporate grooming standards. "You look like you've seen a ghost."

"I am the ghost," he said, and they both laughed, though neither found it funny.

The bull of a CEO, Richard Sterling III, had announced yet another reorg that morning. Marcus's department was being "sunsetted" — corporate euphemism for executed. His team of twelve, people he'd worked alongside for years, would be gone by Friday.

"This is it," he told himself. "The lightning strike."

The thought came from nowhere, sudden and brilliant as illumination. All those years of being a good soldier, of accepting the bull, the unpaid overtime, the deferred dreams — they'd reduced him to something undead, hollowed out and shambling through a life that wasn't his own.

He looked at Janice, really looked at her, for the first time in years. "Want to get a drink? Not to complain about work. Just... to feel something."

She smiled, and for a moment, the zombie flickered and died. Something human stirred in its place.

"Hair or no hair," she said, "I think I'd like that."

Outside, lightning split the sky, and Marcus didn't duck for cover. He stood there, letting the rain fall, finally ready to be struck.