Goldfish of the Living Dead

The ball hit the wall with a satisfying thwack, ricocheting back at me. I swung my padel racket, missed entirely, and tripped over my own feet.

"Dude, are you okay?" Maya asked from across the court. "You're playing like a zombie today."

I wasn't okay. I'd been up until 3 AM finishing my Stanford application because my parents said if I wanted to go there, I needed to be perfect. Perfect grades, perfect extracurriculars, perfect everything. I was seventeen and already exhausted.

"Yeah," I lied. "Just tired."

We finished our padel match—Maya crushed me, obviously—and I dragged myself home. The house was quiet. In the family room, my little brother's goldfish, Bubbles, was doing loops in his bowl. I stared at him, jealous of his tiny world.

That's when it hit me: I was a zombie. Not the brain-eating kind, but the walking-through-life-on-autopilot kind. The kind that everyone expects to have it all together because they go to a good school and play sports and have a "bright future."

I pulled out my phone and started deleting apps. Instagram, gone. TikTok, deleted. The college discussion forums, see ya. I stood there, screen glowing in the dark, feeling something shift inside me.

Maya texted: "u coming to jasons party tonight?"

I thought about it. I could go, pretend to be having fun, post stories, maintain my perfect image. Or I could stay home, sleep for twelve hours, and wake up as an actual human being instead of a goldfish swimming in circles.

"no," I typed back. "im finally done being a zombie."

I put my phone down, watched Bubbles do another loop, and finally went to sleep.