Zombies in the Break Room

Sarah watched the microwave count down from thirty like it was a doomsday clock. 3:45 PM on a Friday, and she'd been staring at the same spreadsheet for six hours. Her eyes burned. She felt like a zombie - not the cool, cinematic kind with dramatic backstory, but the corporate variety: brain eaten by quarterly projections, soul hollowed out by performance reviews.

The corporate bear market had been eating their department alive for months. Layoff rumors circulated like virulent gossip, everyone pretending not to hear while secretly updating resumes. Sarah bore it all with practiced detachment, same as everyone else. She'd stopped caring around the same time she stopped sleeping through the night.

Then Marcus walked in. He was holding a Tupperware container with something suspiciously green inside.

"Spinach," he said, seeing her skeptical look. "Trying to be healthy. Doctor says my blood pressure's too high. Stress-related, apparently."

Sarah laughed, and it came out rusty from disuse. "Stress-related? From this place? That's shocking."

Marcus leaned against the counter. The sunset through the break room window turned his skin the color of a tangerine. That goddamned orange light, hitting them both as they stood there, two corporate casualties pretending their spinach and lukewarm coffee meant something. Pretending they weren't already dead inside.

"I got another offer," Marcus said quietly.

The microwave beeped.

"Congratulations."

"I turned it down."

Sarah stared at him. "Why?"

"Because," Marcus said, and his voice cracked, "because my wife died in this building. Her desk is three rows over. I eat spinach now because she made me promise to take care of myself, and if I leave, I feel like I'm leaving her too."

The confession hung there like smoke. Sarah thought about all the zombies she worked with - everyone carrying something, everyone bearing their own private cemeteries. The microwave hummed with her forgotten lunch.

"You should take the offer, Marcus," she said softly. "She wouldn't want you haunting this place."

He nodded, looking at his spinach like it held the answer. "I know. I will. I just... I just needed someone to hear me say it."

Sarah went back to her desk and opened her resume document. The cursor blinked like a heartbeat, and for the first time in months, she felt alive.