The Pyramid of Empty Days

The cat curled around Elena's ankles as she unlocked the apartment door at 8 PM, another thirteen-hour shift behind her. She shouldered off her bag and knelt to stroke Bast's orange fur, the only living thing that didn't want something from her.

Three years ago, she'd believed in the project. The pyramid-shaped headquarters was supposed to revolutionize corporate architecture—hierarchical, aspirational, a literal monument to ambition. Now she spent her days inside its glass slopes, feeling like something that had forgotten how to die. A zombie in a tailored suit, moving through meetings where she stopped listening hours ago.

"You're being difficult," Marcus had told her that afternoon. The man was a bull of a human being, all charging certainty and crushed collateral. He wanted her to redesign the east wing's open plan—again—because the new VP claimed it affected his chakras.

She'd almost laughed. Instead she'd nodded, feeling the hollow space where her backbone used to be.

Bast jumped onto her lap as she collapsed onto the couch, purring like a small engine. The cat had been her sister's; Sarah had left behind the apartment, the furniture, and this opinionated animal when she moved to Portland with someone she'd met on a Tuesday.

Elena rested her forehead against Bast's warm flank. "I'm glad one of us still knows what we want."

Her phone buzzed on the coffee table. Marcus. Probably demanding she come back for some emergency that could wait until morning.

She watched it ring once, twice, three times.

Then she reached out and silenced it.

Bast butted her chin with his head, insistent. Elena scratched him behind the ears and thought about pyramids, about how they were built on the backs of workers who didn't live to see them finished. She thought about zombies and the ones who chose their own graves.

Tomorrow she would resign. Tonight, she would order Thai food and sleep for ten hours.

For the first time in months, she didn't feel like walking dead anymore.