The Wellness Protocol

The fluorescent lights hummed overhead as Marcus unlocked his office door at 6:03 AM. He moved like a zombie through the open floor plan, past rows of empty desks that would soon be filled with people who looked remarkably similar to himself—exhausted, coffee-dependent, going through motions they'd performed a thousand times before. Three years of mergers and acquisitions had stripped the company down to its most profitable bones, and somewhere along the way, Marcus had stopped feeling like anything more than a resource to be allocated.

He opened his drawer and retrieved the vitamin C supplements HR had distributed yesterday, part of their new "Immunity = Resilience" initiative. The accompanying brochure promised that a strengthened immune system was the first step toward becoming an "unstoppable corporate warrior." Marcus had almost laughed during the presentation, but then he'd caught his own reflection in the conference room glass and seen nothing worth laughing at.

His phone buzzed. Sarah.

"Did you go swimming this morning?" she asked when he answered.

"No. The pool was closed. Maintenance issue."

The lie sat between them like the one she'd told him last Friday about working late when she'd actually been at a bar with colleagues, colleagues who still made her laugh, who still saw her as someone more than a collection of compromised compromises.

"Marcus, we need to talk about the cabin. I can't bear another weekend of us avoiding each other in the woods pretending we're not falling apart."

He stared at the vitamin in his palm. A sudden, violent urge to crush it swept through him.

"I know," he said. "I know."

After hanging up, Marcus walked to the window. Thirty floors below, the city was beginning to stir. A bus cut through the morning mist. Someone somewhere was starting something real. He pocketed the vitamin, grabbed his coat, and walked out the door, leaving his computer sleeping on his desk, leaving everything except the possibility that somewhere, somehow, it wasn't too late to learn how to be alive again.