Zombies at the Padel Court

The betting pool had reached fourteen thousand dollars. Everyone in the office knew about it—everyone except Sarah, the twenty-six-year-old redhead in accounting who'd somehow become the centerpiece of an ugly wager about who would sleep with her first. They called her 'the fox' in hushed whispers by the coffee machine, as if her apparent cunning was something she wielded instead of something projected onto her.

Maria stood at the padel court, gripping her racket until her knuckles turned white. Thomas arrived late, as usual, his shirt untucked, eyes hollowed out by another week of surviving instead of living. 'You look like a zombie,' she said, and he laughed without humor.

'We're all zombies,' he replied, stepping onto the court. 'Just some of us are better at pretending we're not.'

They'd been friends once, back when they believed the promotions would mean something, back when they thought the money would feel like enough. Now Thomas was secretly sleeping with Sarah—Maria had seen them leaving together Thursday night, Thomas's hand on her lower back, the familiar way she leaned into him. Sarah wasn't a fox. She was just lonely, like the rest of them.

The game began in furious silence. Each smash of the ball against the glass walls echoed like gunshots. Maria thought about the pool—how Thomas had probably put money on himself, how the whole office had become a casino where you could bet on anything except your own happiness.

'She knows about the pool,' Maria said between points. Thomas missed the ball entirely.

'What?'

'Sarah. She found out yesterday. Someone left the spreadsheet open on a shared drive.' She smashed the ball past him. 'She's not as clueless as everyone thinks.'

Thomas's face crumbled. The zombie mask slipped, revealing something raw and terrified underneath. 'I didn't—I mean, I never—that's not why I—'

Maria dropped her racket. 'Then why, Thomas? Why her, why now, why everything?'

'Because I'm forty years old and I still don't know what I'm doing with my life.' His voice cracked. 'Because I wanted someone to look at me like I mattered. Even if it was for the wrong reasons.'

The sun was setting over the pool behind them, the water turning blood-orange. For the first time in three years, Maria saw her friend again. Not the colleague. Not the zombie. Just Thomas, exhausted and desperate and human.

'The pool money,' she said quietly. 'Nobody collected it. After Sarah found out, someone deleted the file.'

Thomas stared at her. 'You?'

'I'd rather lose fourteen thousand dollars than keep playing this game.' She picked up her racket. 'Your serve.'

They played until the floodlights clicked on automatically, until their arms ached and their shirts were soaked through, until for an hour they were just two people hitting a ball back and forth, neither zombies nor foxes nor anything else the office had made them.