Palm Lines in Cubicle Light

The fluorescent lights of the 17th floor had been making Maya feel like a **zombie** for months. Dead eyes, mechanical movements, responding to emails that didn't matter with replies no one would read. She'd started dissociating during meetings, watching her **friend** and coworker, Sarah, nod enthusiastically at things Maya knew Sarah didn't believe either.

"You need a break," Sarah had said over lukewarm coffee yesterday. "We're rotting in here."

Now, Maya sat on a velvet stool in a cramped shop between a dry cleaner and a bodega, staring at her own **palm**. The fortune teller, an elderly woman with eyes like river stones, traced the lifeline with a fingernail stained with henna.

"You're not living," the woman said. "Just existing."

Maya thought about her apartment, where her **cat**, Barnaby, spent hours staring at nothing from the windowsill. She thought about the bowl on her counter, the one with the single **goldfish** she'd won at a company picnic three years ago. The fish had outlived two relationships and one career pivot, swimming in endless circles in its six-gallon universe.

"What should I do?" Maya asked.

"Stop swimming in circles," the woman said, pressing a silver coin into Maya's hand. "The water is stagnant because you won't move."

Back at her desk, Sarah caught her eye across the cubicle wall. Something passed between them—not a smile, but recognition. They were both drowning, both pretending the water was fine.

Maya typed her resignation letter. The goldfish would need someone who'd actually clean its tank. Barnaby would need windows with real sunlight. And maybe she'd call Sarah tonight—really call her—and they'd talk about what it meant to be alive in a world that wanted everyone asleep.

The goldfish swam another circle. For the first time in months, Maya watched it and saw herself clearly: small, contained, but still moving.

"Not for much longer," she whispered aloud. Someone in the next cubicle shushed her.

Maya smiled. It felt unfamiliar on her face, like a muscle she'd forgotten how to use.