Goldfish at the End of the World

The goldfish had been floating sideways for three days before Marcus finally admitted it was dead. Another thing he'd failed to keep alive, though at least this one had lasted seven years—a longer tenure than his marriage, longer than his last three jobs, longer than any genuinely happy stretch of memory he could summon.

He poured the fish down the toilet and watched it spiral away, feeling like he was saying goodbye to the last tether holding him to something resembling hope.

Back at his desk, the Zoom meeting blinked alive at 9 PM. His colleagues stared through screens with eyes glazed over—the zombie parade of corporate ambition, endless and hungry. They spoke of synergy and scaling and Q4 deliverables, but Marcus heard only the groaning of the undead.

"We're running lean," Chen said, and Marcus thought about how he'd been running for fifteen years—running from disappointment, running toward goals that shifted like sand, running until his lungs burned and his heart hammered against ribs that felt increasingly fragile.

The office bulldog, Sarah, was already pitching her idea—another aggressive acquisition strategy that would devour competitors whole. She'd taken the corporate bull by the horns years ago and refused to let go, even as it trampled everyone else in its path. Marcus admired her ferocity sometimes, in the way you admire a natural disaster from a safe distance.

"Marcus? You're on mute."

He unmuted. "Sorry. Bandwidth issues."

His dog, Buster, whined at the door—the real dog, not the metaphorical one that chased him through nightmares. Buster knew things were different now. Since the layoffs. Since Maya left. Since he'd started recognizing himself in that dead goldfish's blank, unblinking eye.

"We need to decide tonight," Sarah pressed. "Who's staying on the project?"

Marcus watched their faces, these people he'd spent years beside. They looked like ghosts already, haunting a workplace that would delete their access badges the moment security cleared.

He thought about running—really running—out the door and never stopping. But instead he said, "I'm in," and watched the zombie nod its approval.

Later, as Buster curled against his feet, Marcus bought another goldfish online. Some habits are harder to break than others, even when you know exactly how they end.