The Pyramid at Sunset

I watch her from across the kitchen, tracing the rim of my empty glass. Marie stands at the counter, methodically peeling an orange. The citrus scent hangs heavy between us, sharp and accusing.

She used to be brilliant. I remember the woman who'd debate philosophy at 2 AM, who painted watercolors of cityscapes, who laughed with her whole body. Now she moves through our apartment like she's navigating a minefield. Her promotion came six months ago—Vice President of Operations at a company whose headquarters is shaped like a pyramid, a brutal glass monument to hierarchy that looms over the highway.

"How was your day?" I ask, though I already know.

She doesn't turn around. "Fine."

The word lands like a stone.

She's not fine. She's become something else entirely—what the kids at her office call a corporate zombie. Someone who's surrendered so completely to the machine that the machine is all that's left. She stopped painting months ago. Our last date was three weeks ago, cancelled because of an emergency meeting that wasn't actually an emergency.

I walk to the window. Outside, the sky is burning that particular shade of orange that means sunset is about to give way to darkness. The pyramid catches the light, its glass faceted like a diamond, beautiful and terrible.

"Marie."

She finally turns. Her eyes are flat, devoid of the spark that first made me fall in love with her. Her skin has that waxy quality of someone who hasn't slept properly in weeks. She looks like she's been embalmed while still breathing.

"What?"

"Do you even remember who you are?"

The orange peel falls from her hand. She stares at me, and for a moment, something flickers behind her eyes. Recognition? Grief? Then it's gone, replaced by that glazed patience she uses with difficult clients.

"I'm tired, David. That's all."

But it's not all. We both know it. She died months ago—the real her—and whatever this thing is wearing her face, whatever shuffles through our life in sensible shoes and responds to emails at midnight, that's what's left. The pyramid took another soul today.

And I'm still here, loving the ghost of a woman who hasn't realized she's already dead.