Market Corrections

The goldfish had survived longer than her marriage. Elena stared into the bowl on her desk—Captain Fin, she'd called him in a moment of whimsy, back when she still believed in fresh starts.

"Bullshit," Sarah said from the next desk over, scrolling through her terminal. "Another analyst riding the bull wave. They always crash."

Elena blinked. The office hummed with that familiar morning adrenaline—the kind that came from betting millions on movements you couldn't see, touch, or control. She'd been doing this for twelve years. Predicting markets, reading tea leaves in candlestick patterns, convincing herself that past performance indicated future results.

Captain Fin circled his bowl, orange flash against glass. Three seconds of memory, they said. Then forget. Swim again. Maybe that was the trick.

"You're too bearish on everything lately," Sarah noted, not looking up. "It's not like you."

It wasn't like her. But then, neither was sleeping in the guest room of her own apartment. Neither was the way she flinched when David's name appeared on her phone. Neither was the hollow space where something—ambition, hope, whatever—used to live.

The goldfish stopped swimming. Hovered near the surface, gills moving in that terrible, efficient rhythm.

Elena's hand moved before her mind caught up. She grabbed her bag, stood, and walked toward the exit. Bull market, bear market—what did it matter? She'd been someone's investment, someone's risk assessment, someone's portfolio diversification strategy.

Captain Fin's bowl felt heavy in her hands as she carried him out.

She drove to the reservoir. The water stretched dark and endless under streetlights, and for the first time in months, her chest expanded. She lowered the bowl into the cold water.

"Swim," she whispered.

The goldfish hesitated, then darted forward—orange ghost disappearing into depths that had room for memory, for mistakes, for becoming something else entirely.

Her phone buzzed in her pocket. David again. Probably bullish on reconciliation. She let it ring.

Tonight, she wasn't bearing anything. Tonight, she was just a woman standing at water's edge, finally learning how to forget.