The Pyramid of Regrets

The corporate pyramid rose forty stories above the city, a glass tombstone to ambition. Sarah stood at the edge of the rooftop pool, midnight water rippling like black silk. Her vitamin supplements lay scattered on the patio table—D, B12, omega-3—each bottle a small admission that she couldn't keep up with the machine they'd built.

'You're thinking about jumping again,' Marcus said, stepping from the shadows. He moved like the fox he was—clever, adaptable, always surviving when others burned out. 'I'm not your therapist, Sarah. I'm just your boss.'

'Then why are you here?'

'The betting pool,' he said, pouring whiskey into a paper cup. 'Marketing has you at three-to-one for resignation by Friday. HR thinks you'll snap before then.'

Sarah laughed, dark and hollow. 'I gave them my best years. I ate whatever they fed me, swallowed their vitamins, believed their lies about work-life balance.'

'Dog eat dog,' Marcus nodded.

'I bought the dog, Marcus.' She pulled out her phone, scrolled to a photo: a golden retriever, alone in an empty apartment. 'Thought it would make the isolation feel like a choice. Instead, it just reminds me who I'm neglecting.'

'The pyramid scheme,' Marcus said quietly. 'Sell your life for the promise of climbing higher. By the time you realize there's nothing at the top, you've already sold everything else.'

'Why do you stay?'

He walked to the pool's edge. 'Same reason you do. The golden handcuffs taste like freedom until you feel the weight.'

Sarah thought about her vitamins, her dog waiting at home, the fox who'd outlasted everyone else. 'What if I just... walked away?'

'Then I'd win the pool.' He smiled, something genuine breaking through. 'And you'd finally start living.'

She called the dog walker. Then she called her mother for the first time in six months. The pyramid glittered behind her, irrelevant now.

'Marcus?'

'Yeah?'

'The pool—split it with the new guy. The one who still thinks this matters.'

Sarah left her vitamins on the table. Some things, she realized, you don't need to survive. You just need to remember you're alive.