The Palm Reader's Warning

Maya had been running on fumes for three weeks when the burning building woke her up. Not a real building—the burning sensation in her right palm, pressing against the cheap office carpet where she'd passed out at 3 AM again. She was 34, a senior analyst at a firm that had been technically dead since 2009, kept alive by zombie contracts and clients who never noticed they were paying for services that hadn't been updated since the Bush administration.

Her phone vibrated. Greg. Again.

"Are you coming in?" he asked, not asking.

"Yeah. Just. Yeah."

"Good. The Merger—that's what they're calling it now—finalizes today. Attendance is... expected."

The Merger. A zombie company eating another zombie company. Maya felt like something that had been dead for years, still walking around in heels, still ordering oat milk lattes she couldn't taste anymore.

She caught the train, standing pressed against a window that reflected back someone she almost recognized. Outside, palm trees blurred past—Los Angeles pretending everything was fine. At her stop, a man with a folding table caught her eye. PALM READING, his cardboard sign promised. TAROT. CLARITY.

She stopped. It was ridiculous. She was going to lose her job today. The palm reader's Merger would eliminate half their department. She should be networking, updating her resume, something useful.

Instead, she sat down.

"Your palm," he said, not looking up. "You don't have to tell me anything."

She extended her hand. He traced the lines with a finger that smelled like sandalwood and something medicinal.

"You've been running from something," he said. "Or toward something. Sometimes it's the same thing."

"My life," she heard herself say. "Both."

He looked up then. His eyes were unexpectedly kind.

"The dead things you're carrying? They don't get heavier if you put them down."

"What?"

"Whatever's got you feeling like this." He pressed a small smooth stone into her palm. "The zombie things. The places that died while everyone kept showing up. You can leave."

Maya walked into the office. Greg was there, and the department head, and lawyers she'd never seen before. They were talking about synergy and streamlining and the future of the firm.

She kept walking.

"Maya?" Greg called. "The meeting—"

"I'm not staying," she said. "I'm done being a zombie."

She pressed the stone into her palm, stepped out into the California sun, and started running toward something she'd finally decide for herself.