The Supposed Glory Days

The fluorescent lights of the office hum at a frequency that made Marcus's teeth ache. He stared at the spreadsheet on his screen, cell after cell of numbers that had ceased to represent anything real years ago. His friend Sarah had stopped by his desk three times that morning, each time with that look in her eyes — the one that said she knew something was wrong but wouldn't ask.

"You're taking your vitamin D supplements?" she'd whispered during the third visit, placing a small orange bottle on his desk like it was contraband.

Marcus had nodded, unable to tell her that the pills sat untouched in his kitchen cabinet alongside the others — the B-complex, the omega-3, the multivitamin his sister swore by. He wasn't depressed. He wasn't burnt out. He was just thirty-five and suddenly aware that he'd been lying to himself for a decade.

The truth had hit him two weeks earlier at his company softball game. He'd stood in the outfield, watching the baseball arc through the perfect June sky, remembering how much he'd once loved the game. Not the corporate bonding version with cheap beer and coworkers trying too hard, but the real thing — the smell of cut grass, the satisfying crack of the bat, the way time seemed to slow down when a pitch came toward you. He'd realized he couldn't remember the last time he'd done something just because he enjoyed it.

"Marcus?" Sarah's voice pulled him back. "Lunch?"

He looked at her — really looked at her. They'd been work friends for six years, the kind who knew each other's coffee orders and complained about the same bosses, but who'd never crossed the invisible boundary into actual friendship.

"I think I need to make some changes," he heard himself say. The words hung there, heavier than he intended.

Sarah sat on the edge of his desk. "Okay. That's not actually terrifying at all."

Marcus laughed, surprised by the sound. "No, I mean — not just here. Everywhere. I think I forgot how to be a person somewhere along the way."

"Join the club," she said, but her expression softened. "We could start with lunch. Real lunch. Away from here."

He found himself nodding. It wasn't everything, but it was something. The baseball could wait. The vitamins could wait. For now, he'd settle for one real thing in a life full of fake ones.