Zombie Logic

The dead don't have bad hair days. That's what I told myself when I saw Marcus in the elevator, his once-immaculate pompadour now a tangled testament to seventy-hour weeks. We'd been friends since junior year, back when we believed 'work-life balance' was something you achieved, not something you tweeted about ironically.

"You look like shit," I said, because someone had to.

He laughed, and it sounded like grinding stones. "Project Pyramid," was all he said, tapping the side of his head. "Rolling out in Q3."

His iPhone buzzed—his tenth notification in three minutes. He didn't look. None of us did anymore. We were all zombies, really, shuffling through glass corridors, consuming brains and enthusiasm, leaving hollowed-out versions of ourselves in our wake. The only difference was Marcus had stopped pretending there was anything left to lose.

That night, I found myself at his apartment door with takeout and whiskey. "Just checking on my friend," I'd told myself, but really, I needed to know if the rot had spread. If whatever hollowed him out could hollow me too.

He let me in. The place was pristine—too pristine. No photos. No personal effects. Just a laptop open to a slide deck about something called 'synergistic solutions for tomorrow.'

"It's a pyramid scheme," he said suddenly, gesturing at the screen with his drink. "The whole thing. Not the company. The life. You buy in at the bottom, grinding yourself down, and maybe—maybe—you get promoted to the level where you're the one doing the grinding."

"So quit."

He looked at me then, really looked at me, and I saw it: the thing I'd been pretending wasn't there. The absence. Whatever made Marcus Marcus was gone, leaving behind something that wore his skin and drank his whiskey.

"I can't," he said softly. "I signed the non-compete."

I left with the takeout untouched. In the Uber home, I stared at my own iPhone, at the glowing pyramid of apps, at the email notification from work: 'URGENT: Q3 deliverables.'

Outside my building, I stopped. The dead don't have bad hair days, I thought again. But the living—well, we're just zombies who haven't figured it out yet.

I deleted the email. Then I deleted the app. Then I stood there under streetlights, feeling something stirring in my chest that might have been a heartbeat, might have been the beginning of whatever comes after.

Tomorrow, I'd call my mother. Maybe find a new job. Maybe grow my hair out.

But tonight, I just watched the sun rise and pretended I wasn't one of them anymore.