Unwell

Marcus sat at his desk at Vitality Solutions, staring at the sleek white bottle of vitamin D supplements that mocked him from his monitor's reflection. At forty-eight, he'd become acutely aware of time's relentless erosion—not just of collagen and testosterone, but of possibility. His startup job promised wellness revolution, but delivered spreadsheets and quarterly projections about selling health to people who'd never afford it.

The company cafeteria became his theater of absurdity. There, amid colleagues meticulously arranging organic spinach into antioxidant fortresses, Marcus felt like an imposter. He watched Jennifer from marketing eat her kale with the same performative enthusiasm she brought to client meetings, as if chewing each leaf might somehow compensate for selling sugar water to children in her previous career. The spinach wasn't nutrition; it was moral currency in their economy of performative wellness.

"You look like you're contemplating mortality again," Elena said, sliding into the chair opposite him. She was thirty-two, with the kind of cynical clarity that came from seeing three wellness trends collapse before her thirtieth birthday. Marcus had confided in her once, after his divorce, about waking up one morning and realizing his body had become a stranger—creaking, mysterious, prone to betrayals.

"Just thinking about how we're selling vitamins to people who'd be better off with universal healthcare and three days of sleep," Marcus said, pushing his spinach around with unnecessary concentration.

Elena laughed, dark and knowing. "Welcome to capitalism, Marcus. We commodify hopelessness now."

That afternoon, during the quarterly all-hands meeting, the CEO announced mandatory wellness tracking. Wearables would monitor employees' sleep, heart rate, and "recovery metrics." The room erupted in enthusiastic applause. Marcus felt his blood pressure rise—a physical rebellion against this invasion.

Later, he found himself on the roof, not quite crying, wearing his grandfather's old fedora he'd brought for no reason he could articulate. The hat felt ridiculous against his technological prison, but it was something real—touched by hands that had worked actual soil, not projections.

Elena joined him, lighting a cigarette despite the wellness policy. "Nice hat. Very old man yelling at cloud energy."

"It was my grandfather's," Marcus said quietly. "He worked with his hands. I market lies about health to people who can't afford real food."

She exhaled smoke into the pristine corporate sky. "Maybe we just accept we're all just pretending. Spinach won't save us from being human, Marcus. Neither will vitamins."

Beneath his ridiculous hat, Marcus finally let himself laugh—genuine, ugly, human laughter about the beautiful absurdity of trying to outrun mortality while selling wellness to strangers. For once, the irony tasted better than any vitamin.