Corporate Goldfish

The Monday morning meeting room smelled like stale coffee and quiet desperation. Sarah sat third from the left, exactly as she had for seven years, her body moving through motions while her mind drifted elsewhere. She'd become a **zombie** in a blazer, nodding at presentations she couldn't hear, typing notes she'd never read.

Her phone buzzed under the table—a reminder to feed her daughter's **goldfish**. The creature lived in a bowl on their kitchen counter, swimming endless circles in six gallons of filtered water. Sometimes Sarah felt a kinship with it. She'd once read that goldfish have three-second memories, and she wondered if that was a blessing—to forget, to rediscover the same plastic castle every time.

"We need someone to monitor the situation," her manager was saying. His eyes swept the room, and Sarah watched them land on her. She'd been chosen for the special project, the one everyone whispered about in the breakroom. Employee satisfaction monitoring. A nice corporate euphemism for becoming a company **spy**.

She'd report on lunch conversations, note who gathered at which tables, document the emergence of cliques and complaints. Her reports would help management "optimize team dynamics." In exchange, they'd promise a promotion she'd stopped wanting three years ago.

That evening, Sarah stood at her kitchen counter, dropping flakes into the goldfish's bowl. **Water** ripled outward, distorting the fish's view of her face. She wondered if the fish recognized her, or if she was just the Feeder, the bringer of sustenance, a distant giant who controlled its tiny universe.

"What's it like?" she whispered. "Not knowing?"

Her daughter wandered in, pajama-clad. "Mom, why do you talk to Goldie?"

Sarah smiled, but her reflection in the bowl showed a woman she barely recognized. "Just thinking, sweetie. Just thinking."

The next day, she accepted the assignment. Not for the promotion, but because she needed to see how far the rabbit hole went. Sometimes the only way to stop being a zombie was to become the monster that created them.

She dropped another flake into the water, watching the fish rise to meet it, grateful for its three-second memory. Some things were better forgotten.