The Wellness Pyramid Scheme

The fluorescent lights hummed their usual 4:47 AM song as Sarah stared at her monitor, eyes burning from twelve hours of spreadsheets that blurred together like watercolors in the rain. She'd been a corporate zombie for three years now—sleepwalking through presentations, nodding at empty phrases about synergy and deliverables, drinking coffee that tasted like burnt regret.

On her desk sat an orange plastic bottle of vitamin D supplements. Her doctor had prescribed them after she mentioned she hadn't seen actual sunlight since before the pandemic. She shook two into her palm, dry-swallowing them like tiny promises of a life she might someday live. The bottle promised wellness. She felt nothing.

"Your Q3 deliverables are falling behind," Marcus's email read. He'd copied the entire team, of course. Marcus was building his little empire, one unnecessary meeting at a time. She imagined him at the top of his corporate pyramid, sharpening his knives on the bones of junior associates who'd dared to hope for something more.

Sarah's phone buzzed against her thigh. A text from Dan: "Still at work?" They'd been dancing around each other for months—a slow fire she tried to ignore, pretending she didn't feel something real. She typed back: "Until 6. Maybe dinner after?" Then deleted it. Then typed it again. Her thumb hovered over send.

Behind her desk, the coaxial cable had come loose from the wall again, leaving her without internet. IT had promised to fix it three times. The whole office was holding together with duct tape and desperation, much like her.

"We need to leverage our synergies," Marcus announced at the 5:00 meeting, clicking through slides nobody cared about. Sarah looked around the conference room. Twelve faces, all wearing the same exhausted expression. They were all zombies, really—shuffling between meetings, eating ambition for breakfast, forgetting why they'd wanted any of this in the first place.

Her phone lit up. Dan again: "I'm making pasta. Come over. No pressure. Just... come over."

Sarah stood up, her chair scraping loudly against the floor. "Marcus," she said, her voice steadier than she felt. "I need to leave early today."

Marcus blinked, finally looking at her instead of through her. "For what?"

"To remember what it feels like to be alive."

She walked out, leaving her orange vitamin bottle on the desk. Let them figure it out. Some things mattered more than Q3.