The Big Quit

In December, the dreams got a version bump.

They used to run three or four nights a week; now they ran nightly. They used to be scenery; now they had plot. I dreamed the blue-and-white boat up on blocks for repairs. I dreamed a study I'd never seen, one whole wall of old books. I dreamed someone boiling water in a dark kitchen, blue ring of flame. One morning I was smelled awake — herring, unmistakable — and marched into our kitchen to investigate. Nothing. Vivi said I was possessed.

The possession escalated. On a Wednesday, Lucas texted: "Our boat went into dry dock today." I stood in the office hallway holding my phone, unable to move. I had never told him what I dreamed. I had never told anyone.

Stale cache. Residue. The hippocampus bug. I recited my standard answers and discovered, for the first time, that I no longer believed a word of them.

That same Wednesday, Brad pulled me into a sync. Q4 calibration was out: the project I owned had been a triumph — it now featured prominently in someone else's promo packet. My rating: meets expectations. Brad conveyed that next year held great things, that I should keep up the good work, and, oh — there was a new Q1 project he wanted me to own.

I sat in that little room I'd sat in a hundred times and heard myself say: "Brad, I'm resigning."

The moment it came out, I was as shocked as he was. I hadn't drafted that sentence — no. I'd been drafting it for seven months. I'd just never approved the release.

The following two weeks were someone else's life. HR's offboarding emails, farewell lunches, giving away the desk succulents. Everyone asked the same two questions: which company, and how much. When it emerged that I wasn't jumping ship — that I was quitting to travel — every face performed the same expression: envy as the base coat, pity at the edges, and sandwiched in between, a thin bright layer of she's lost her mind.

Only Vivi asked the real question. Late night, living room, cross-legged: "You've thought this through? Your OPT — you quit, it's gone. Walk away and your six years in America turn the page. Green card, H-1B, the big-tech résumé: full reset."

"I know."

"I'm not blocking you," she said. "I need to hear you say it out loud."

"I know," I said again. And here's the strange part: the second time I said it, the thing in my chest that had been wound tight for seven months went slack.

"Good." Vivi nodded, then broke into the grin. "Next item: April. Italy. You're coming with me. I've scoped the flights already, la — the Amalfi guesthouses sell out. And your calendar—" she drew it out, savoring, "—is now extremely available, Miss Unemployed."

I laughed and said yes. April, Italy. Between now and then stood one Christmas, and one Netherlands I didn't dare think directly at.

On my last day, I turned in the badge and the laptop. The IT guy slid my machine into an antistatic bag, stickered it, and dropped it into a cart full of identical machines. Everything I'd believed I couldn't live without, processed in under four minutes.

Walking out the campus gate, I looked back once. The glass curtain wall held California's permanent blue sky, and one very small me.

They asked what my next step was.

I said: there is no step. I deleted the roadmap.