The Weight of Water

Miriam adjusted her hat as she stared at her reflection in the office restroom mirror. At forty-five, she'd stopped trying to please everyone years ago, but today's board meeting had tested that resolve. The hat—a vintage fedora she'd bought on a whim in Rome—was her armor against the corporate bullshit that permeated every floor of this glass tower.

She wiped a piece of spinach from between her teeth. Lunch with Marcus had been another exercise in deflection. He wanted her to join his startup, to leave behind fifteen years of climbing a ladder that now seemed to lead nowhere. The spinach reminded her of all the healthy choices she kept making that left her feeling somehow depleted.

The bull market of 2021 had made everyone rich on paper, but the crash of '23 had left them all holding worthless dreams. Miriam had watched her portfolio evaporate, watched colleagues jump from buildings both literal and metaphorical. She'd stayed. She always stayed.

Her cat, Binx, waited at home. Binx didn't care about quarterly projections or synergy. Binx cared about fresh water in his bowl and warmth in sunbeams. Sometimes she envied him. Sometimes she wished she could just knock a glass of water off a table and demand to be petted for it.

"Miriam?" A voice behind her. Sarah from accounting, twenty-six and still young enough to believe this job meant something. "The meeting's starting."

Miriam adjusted her hat one last time. In that moment, she saw it all—the endless meetings, the performance reviews, the carefully curated LinkedIn profiles. It was all bull, really. Just dust motes dancing in fluorescent light, pretending to be stars.

"You know what, Sarah?" Miriam said, removing her hat and setting it on the counter. "I think I'm going to take the rest of the day off."

She walked out of the restroom, past the conference room where the bull session was already underway. She'd call Marcus. She'd finally learn to swim properly instead of just bobbing in shallow water, terrified of the deep end.

For the first time in years, Miriam felt something like hope. It tasted nothing like spinach.