Papaya and Other Small Deaths

Maya hadn't slept properly in three weeks. The merger announcement had turned everyone at the office into something resembling the walking dead—shuffling between meetings, eyes glazed, surviving on stale coffee and recycled air. She'd started calling them the zombie team, though never aloud. Corporate had no sense of humor.

Now she sat by the hotel pool in San Diego, watching a single goldfish dart between neon-lit tiles at the bottom. It seemed furious, trapped in its tiny illuminated prison, much like she felt. Her phone buzzed again. Another Slack notification. Someone needed the updated Q3 projections. She silenced it and turned her face to the sun.

"You're blocking my view."

She opened one eye. A man in his forties stood there, holding a plate with halved papaya, glistening in the afternoon light. His nametag read: RICHARD, TECHNICAL SUPPORT.

"There are twelve empty chairs," she said.

"Yes, but you're in the one with the shade." He gestured vaguely with his spoon. "I'm Richard. I fix cable modems for a living. My existence is basically troubleshooting other people's misery."

Maya laughed, surprised. "I'm Maya. I orchestrate corporate synergies. My existence is basically creating misery for other people."

Richard sat down anyway. He offered her a piece of papaya. She took it. The fruit was impossibly sweet, juice running down her chin, and for a moment she remembered being somewhere else—somewhere warm and uncomplicated. Before the spreadsheets. Before the performance reviews. Before she'd forgotten what it felt like to want something.

"That goldfish," Richard said, nodding toward the pool. "I've been watching it for twenty minutes. It keeps swimming the same pattern. Left corner, right corner, back again."

"Maybe it likes the routine."

"Or maybe it's forgotten there's anything else."

Something tightened in Maya's chest. She looked at her phone, dark now on the table. At her reflection in the glass—tired eyes, mouth pressed thin. She thought about her apartment, empty and waiting. The unread books on her nightstand. The yoga mat gathering dust. The emails that would still be there tomorrow.

"Richard," she said, "what did you want to be when you grew up?"

He smiled, a little sadly. "A marine biologist."

The goldfish broke its pattern, surfacing with a tiny splash. Maya finished the papaya. "Do you think it's too late?" she asked. "To remember what else there is?"

Richard stood up, brushing crumbs from his shirt. "I think," he said, "that you just have to decide you're not a zombie anymore."

He walked away, back toward the conference center where somewhere, someone was undoubtedly presenting a slide deck about operational excellence. Maya stayed by the pool, watching the goldfish trace its endless loops, and for the first time in months, she didn't reach for her phone. She just sat there, feeling the sun on her skin, and wondered what it would take to swim somewhere new.