The Riddle of the Climb

The corporate pyramid loomed beyond the glass walls of the padel court, its silhouette cutting into the Tokyo twilight like some modern monument to ambition. Marcus swung his racquet, missing the ball entirely, and cursed under his breath.

'You're overthinking it,' David said, retrieving the ball from the corner. 'Like everything else.'

Marcus wiped sweat from his forehead. He hadn't seen David since university, not really. Now his friend stood before him, successful, composed, everything Marcus wasn't. David had solved the sphinx's riddle early—figured out which sacrifices to make, which corners to cut, which parts of himself to excise to ascend.

'I'm just tired,' Marcus said. 'Forty-hour weeks became sixty, then eighty. Now I don't remember who I was before.'

David laughed, but there was something hollow in it. 'We're all zombies, Marc. Walking through the motions, hungry for something we can't name. Some of us just hide it better.'

The revelation hit Marcus like a physical blow. David, the golden boy, the one who'd made partner at thirty-two, felt it too. That profound disconnection from life, that nagging sense that they were playing a game whose rules they'd never agreed to.

'Then why do we keep climbing?' Marcus asked.

David bounced the ball, considering. 'Because the alternative is admitting the riddle has no answer. That maybe satisfaction isn't at the top of anything.'

He served then, and Marcus returned it, and for a moment, moving together in the fading light, they weren't climbers or corpses or colleagues. They were just friends, playing a game, suspended between what they'd lost and what they might still find.

Afterward, over drinks, David said quietly, 'I'm getting out. Leaving the firm.'

Marcus stared. 'And do what?'

'Don't know yet. Maybe figure out if I'm actually alive.' He smiled, something genuine breaking through. 'Want to come with?'