The conference room smelled like lemon pledge and ambition. The kind of scent I had learned to associate with corporate rot. It clung to the polished oak table, the glass water pitchers, the neat stacks of binders tabbed by quarter. Legal had shown up in force, sleeves rolled, pens already clicking, sport jackets slung over the backs of their chairs like they planned to be there awhile. Compliance, on the other hand, had...

They sold the idea as a team-building exercise. Two days out of the office. Culture in the workspace. Grand ideas, presented by people who lived from selling the agenda. It all looked fine on paper—except: people. I stood, waiting for the elevator on the fourth floor of the hotel they’d caged us in for a full two days, a lump lodged in my throat—neither swallowed nor shifting. At least the hallway was empty. At least the...

She had hardened into silence. Stone was not meant to sense the turning of seasons, and yet she did. She knew the warmth of summer by the way no one lingered in the air made heavy by heat. She knew the cold quiet of winter by how sound thinned, and candles burned more slowly. A monolith surrounded by flickering light, she stood at the alter as she always had—hands open, eyes slightly lowered to witness devotion. They came...