The Sphinx of Cubicle Nine

Elena had become something of a zombie at thirty-four—not the flesh-eating kind from movies, but the corporate variety that shuffled through beige corridors, eyes glazed over spreadsheets, soul eroding in slow motion. The orange alert light on her desk blinked like a metastasizing cancer, signaling another system failure nobody cared about.

Her boss, Marcus, was bull-headed in the way only mediocre men with inflated titles could be. He cornered her by the coffee machine, his paisley tie askew, breath smelling of stale ambition. "The quarterly report, Elena. It needs more pop."

"More what?" She adjusted her father's fedora—she'd started wearing it after he died, a absurd affectation that made her feel anchored to something real.

"Pop! Zing! Marcus gestured wildly, knocking over her mug. "You're not getting it. You're not getting any of it lately."

That's when she saw it: the breakroom poster someone had altered. A sphinx with Marcus's face, riddle below: WHAT HAS THOUSAND EYES BUT CANNOT SEE?

The answer came to her like a thunderclap: A corporation. And she was part of it.

"I'm leaving," she said.

Marcus laughed. "You have a mortgage. You have student loans. You can't just—"

Elena set her fedora on her desk, right on the blinking orange light. The cone of shadow covered it completely.

"Watch me."

She walked past security, past the sphinx-poster, out into air that smelled of rain and possibility. Her phone buzzed—a text from Marcus: YOU'LL BE BACK. Zombies always return.

She blocked him and kept walking.