The Palm Reader's Prescription

The corporate wellness program was Elena's idea—a desperate attempt to boost morale after the third round of layoffs. Now she stood in the breakroom, watching employees line up for their complimentary **vitamin** D supplements and palm readings, like some bizarre fusion of pharmacy and fortune teller booth.

"You're going to live a long life," the palm reader told Marcus from accounting, tracing the lines on his hand with theatrical seriousness. Elena noticed Marcus's **dog**—a scruffy terrier he'd started bringing to work after his divorce—watching them with what looked like genuine concern.

Elena's own **palm** had been read that morning. The woman had hesitated, her manicured fingers hovering over the life line. "You're at a crossroads," she'd said, which was corporate fortune-teller code for 'your job is hanging by a thread.'

The irony wasn't lost on her. She'd spent fifteen years climbing this corporate ladder, swallowing whatever pills they offered—literal vitamins, metaphorical ones about "work-life balance," "synergy," "being a team player." Now she was dispensing the same placebo to people she might have to fire next quarter.

"Elena?" Marcus's voice broke her reverie. "You okay?"

She looked at him—really looked—at the way his eyes crinkled with genuine worry, the way the dog pressed against his leg like it understood something humans didn't. "Fine," she said. "Just thinking about how much **vitamin** D we'd need to make this place actually healthy."

Marcus laughed, a surprised bark of sound. The dog wagged its tail.

That night, Elena traced the lines on her own **palm** in the mirror of her bathroom. She could quit. She could do something real. Instead, she washed down another **vitamin** with cheap wine and dreamt of **dogs** and beaches and the kind of life that didn't need a fortune teller to recognize it as worth living.