Drowning in Shallow Water

The corporate apartment was exactly what nobody wanted: pristine, temporary, and filled with someone else's choices. Elena sat on the beige sofa, watching her ex-husband's goldfish circle its bowl with what she assumed was fish resentment. She'd forgotten to feed it for three days. Was that murder or neglect? The distinction felt important somehow.

On the coffee table, an orange sat where his farewell letter had been. She'd eaten the fruit that morning—tart, bright, destroying evidence of his existence one segment at a time. Now only the peel remained, curling into itself like a dying flower. The office pyramid award, some bullshit "Sales Excellence" crystal thing he'd been so proud of, caught the afternoon light and refracted it onto the ceiling. She'd almost thrown it at him when he'd said he needed space. Space. The apartment was two thousand square feet of space.

Her sister's cat, Mr. Business, leapt onto the windowsill, tail twitching with judgment. "You're thirty-five," the cat seemed to say. "You work in data analytics. Your marriage lasted eighteen months. The goldfish is outliving your dignity."

Elena pressed her forehead against the cold glass. Below, the city water tower rose like a sentinel against the sky. She thought about the way they'd met at the company holiday party, how he'd made her laugh until her ribs hurt, how they'd drunk champagne on this very balcony and promised each other forever. Forever had turned out to be exactly as long as it took for him to sleep with his department head.

"I should flush you," she told the goldfish. It blinked, unimpressed.

The afternoon light deepened, orange and thick as honey. She'd go back to work on Monday. Everyone would know. Her cubicle neighbor, that woman who always smelled like vanilla and quiet desperation, would offer sympathetic looks in the breakroom. Elena would smile, brittle and practiced, and say she was focusing on herself now. Whatever that meant.

The water in the fishbowl caught the last of the sun. Elena stood, found the fish food, shook flakes onto the surface. The goldfish rose to meet them, mouth opening and closing in that perpetual, silent scream of existence.

"We're both just swimming in circles," she whispered. "At least you don't have to pretend it means something."