The Vitamin Thief

Marcus washed down the vitamin B complex with room-temperature tap water. The regimen was supposed to help with stress, but after three months, he still couldn't remember the last time he'd slept through the night.

The hat was new—a fedora he'd bought on a whim, imagining it made him look like something other than a tired forty-five-year-old man photocopying documents in parking garages. Corporate spy. The title sounded glamorous in his head. In practice, it was just paperwork and photocopies and the gnawing certainty that he was disappointing everyone.

The orange on the kitchen counter had softened in the heat. Sarah would have thrown it away days ago. Sarah, who still left encouraging sticky notes on the bathroom mirror despite knowing he couldn't read them anymore. Couldn't read much of anything through the fog of living someone else's life.

His target today: a biotech firm developing proprietary vitamin formulations. The irony wasn't lost on him—stealing secrets about the very pills that failed to fix him.

Through the windshield, he watched scientists enter the building. Normal people with normal lives. People who didn't have to check over their shoulder before peeling an orange in their own car.

The juice ran down his chin, acidic and bright. For a moment, he tasted something real.

Then the fedora went back on. The vitamins waited for evening. The spy went back to work.

Some things were worth losing. He just couldn't remember which ones anymore.