The Taxidermy of Goodbye

The office was quiet except for the hum of the fluorescent lights. Maya sat at her desk, the resignation letter burning a hole in her drawer. Three years at this advertising firm, and she'd become something she barely recognized—a woman who scheduled her own breakdowns between client meetings.

Her computer screen glowed with the campaign: a cereal mascot redesign. The client wanted "edgy but family-friendly." The creative director, a man who wore authority like a badly fitted suit, had suggested a skateboard. Maya had suggested they ask what "edgy" meant to a parent struggling to afford groceries. That comment had earned her a meeting with HR.

Outside, rain streaked the window. A **cat**—the same ragged orange tabby that haunted the alleyway—sat on the fire escape, watching her with unblinking amber eyes. She'd started leaving out tuna sandwiches last month. The cat had become her only honest relationship.

Her phone buzzed. Craig. The guy from accounting who'd bought her a drink at the Christmas party, who kissed her in the elevator like he was starving for something real, then never mentioned it again. She'd deleted his number three times. Her thumb hovered.

The office **bear**—a massive taxidermied grizzly the founding partner had shot in 1997—loomed in the lobby downstairs. She'd seen it her first day, glass eyes dead and magnificent, and thought: that could be me. Stuffed and displayed, a trophy of someone else's conquest.

On her monitor, the redesigned mascot mocked her. A **fox**, because what's edgier than something associated with cunning? The client had loved it. Maya had made the fox wear a backwards baseball cap because someone said it would appeal to millennials. She was thirty-two.

The cat outside stretched, yawning, indifferent to her existential crisis. That's what she wanted. To just exist without performing for an audience.

Maya stood up. Her wool **hat**—the one her sister had knit her before moving to Portland, the one that made her look like "a cozy grandmother" according to Craig—sat on her desk. She pulled it on, feeling the ridiculous fuzz against her scalp.

She printed the letter. Signed it with a pen that had stopped working halfway through, so she'd pressed harder, the paper tearing slightly.

In the elevator, she pressed the ground floor button. The grizzly bear stared through the glass doors of the lobby, frozen mid-roar. Maya caught her own reflection beside it—tired eyes, the stupid hat, shoulders she'd been holding tight for years.

She stepped out into the rain. No umbrella. The cat watched her from the fire escape as she walked toward the subway, not looking back at the building where she'd almost disappeared completely. Her phone buzzed again in her pocket. Craig, or maybe her mother, or the automated reminder about her dentist appointment.

She kept walking.