Riddle in the Glass

The tank glowed against the beige cubicle wall, three orange goldfish swimming in endless circles. Elena watched them between meetings, hypnotized by their silent navigation. At least someone in this office knew where they was going.

"Mr. Chen wants the analytics report by five," Jason said, leaning against her partition. He looked tired, his shirt collar unbuttoned at the throat. "Good luck with the Sphinx."

The nickname had stuck since Chen's arrival—inscrutable, impossible to please, posing riddles disguised as questions. Elena adjusted her headset, swallowed her daily vitamin supplement with a gulp of lukewarm coffee. The B-complex promised energy and mental clarity. What she really needed was a different job, or possibly a different life.

Outside, summer lightning flickered behind the clouds, storm weather for the third day straight. The air conditioning hummed, inadequate against the humidity pressing against the windows.

"You're still here?" It was 8 PM. Chen stood in her doorway, his face shadowed.

"Just finishing the Q3 projections." She saved the file, her eyes burning from fourteen hours of spreadsheets.

"My wife used to have those same goldfish," he said unexpectedly, nodding toward the tank. "She said watching them helped her think. She died four years ago tomorrow."

The silence stretched. Elena had prepared for criticism, for another impossible riddle, not this.

"I'm sorry," she said softly.

"I kept the fish for two years after." Chen looked at the orange shapes drifting through the water. "Eventually they died too. Everything does."

He walked away without another word.

Elena gathered her things, the lightning finally cracking the sky open, rain sudden and violent against the glass. At home, her husband sat in the kitchen, nursing a glass of wine, the silence between them familiar as breath.

"You're late," he said, not looking up from his phone.

"Work." She opened the cabinet, reached for her own vitamins. The bottle was empty.

"We need to talk about us, El."

She looked at him across the counter, at the goldfish swimming in their restaurant aquarium the night he'd proposed, at the lightning that had illuminated everything and nothing at all.

"I know," she said. "I know."