Goldfish in the Breakroom

Maya dropped her lunch bag on the counter, watching the **spinach** leaves wilt against the plastic container. Three years at this firm, and her relationship with food had become as functional as her relationship with Mark: present, nutritionally adequate, utterly devoid of joy.

"You look like shit," Elena said from behind her, the breakroom's only other occupant at 2 PM on a Tuesday.

"Feel like it." Maya pressed her forehead against the cool window. Below, palm trees lined the parking lot like sentinels from someone else's California dream. She'd come here right after college, drawn by the **palm**-lined streets and the promise that twenty-somethings could have it all. Now she was thirty-two, and "it all" amounted to a spreadsheet of unfulfilled metrics.

"That orange on your desk," Elena said, nodding toward the fruit bowl. "Mark left it there. Before he—before the meeting."

Maya's stomach tightened. The **orange** sat like a small, bright accusation. Mark had started leaving fruit at her desk three months ago, around the time their conversations shifted from project timelines to things said in the dark, things that couldn't be unsaid.

"He's leaving, isn't he?"

"Thursday," Elena confirmed. "San Francisco office. They offered him your promotion."

The worst part was that Maya didn't even want it anymore. She'd become a **zombie** in her own life, showing up, hitting deliverables, watching the months dissolve into quarters. She thought about the goldfish she'd bought last month—Caroline. Swam in endless circles in her bowl on Maya's desk, fins flashing, completely unaware of her containment. Sometimes Maya felt closer to that **goldfish** than to anyone else in the building.

"He said you should come too," Elena added, almost casually. "He said you both seem—tired of it here. That San Francisco might be... different."

Maya looked at the orange, its bright peel promising something she couldn't quite name. She thought about spinach leaves that had given up trying, about goldfish swimming nowhere, about how it felt to wake up every morning and not know whether you were living or just persisting.

She picked up the orange and began to peel it. "Tell him I'll think about it."

The first burst of citrus hit her hands. For the first time in three years, something actually tasted like something.