The Wellness Protocol

The vitamin supplements sat in amber plastic bottles on Maya's desk—bright promises in a dim world of fluorescent lights. She swallowed them dry each morning: B-complex for energy, D3 for mood, magnesium for the anxiety that hummed beneath her skin like electrical current.

Her friend Carlos had left the firm three months ago. 'You're acting like a zombie,' he'd told her at their last drink, his voice gentle. 'The bull market's made you forget who you are.'

Now Maya sat in the quarterly review, watching her boss, whose nickname was 'The Bull' for his charging style of negotiation. He pounded the table about productivity metrics, his face reddening. Maya nodded at appropriate intervals, her body present, her mind wandering to Carlos's apartment where he painted canvases of twisted, beautiful things and didn't own a suit.

The vitamin regimen had been her attempt at agency. A way to say: I'm taking care of myself in this machine that wants to chew me up. But swallowing pills wasn't the same as living.

After the meeting, Maya found herself in the restroom, staring at her reflection. Dark circles under eyes that looked strangely distant, like they belonged to someone else. A zombie, indeed. The walking dead of corporate efficiency.

Her phone buzzed. Carlos. 'Coffee? There's a gallery opening tonight.'

Maya looked at the vitamins in her hand, then flushed them down the toilet. They swirled away, bright capsules spinning into darkness. She texted back: 'Yes.'

Outside, the city light was failing, the sky bruising purple at the edges. Maya walked toward the gallery, feeling something stir in her chest—not energy, not vitamin-induced buzz, but something older and truer. The bull would charge again tomorrow. The meetings would grind on. But for tonight, she would remember what it felt like to be alive.