Signal Lost

The goldfish in the reception aquarium had been dead for three weeks before anyone noticed. Marcus had pointed out its sluggish swimming to Jen twice—"I think he's sick"—but Jen, whose job title was Senior Experience Coordinator but whose actual function was keeping the office from feeling like the sterile corporate tomb it was, had just waved him off with a smile that didn't reach her eyes.

"He's fine, Marcus. You worry too much."

Now the fish floated at an awkward angle near the plastic castle, and Marcus felt a strange kinship with it. He'd been floating awkwardly through his own life for years—forty-three, divorced, renting a condo that cost more each month than his father made in a year, performing work that had ceased to matter even to himself sometime around 2019.

The cable guy was under his desk when Sarah's text came through.

"Hey! Drinks tonight? Been too long :)"

Marcus stared at the message. Sarah had been his work friend—the kind you grab lunch with, complain about management with, share those too-personal details that bind you to someone simply because you see them eight hours a day, five days a week. She'd left for a startup six months ago. The texts had been frequent at first, then sporadic, then mostly just holidays and birthdays. Now this.

"Sorry, tonight's not good," he typed, then deleted it. The truth was he had no plans. He just couldn't stomach another conversation about how great her new job was, how innovative, how the team really clicked there. How she should have left years ago.

"Cable's replaced," the guy said, sliding out from under the desk. "You're all set."

Marcus paid and tipped too generously, then sat in the silence of his living room with the television off. His phone buzzed again. Sarah.

"No worries! Next week?"

He thought about the goldfish, how it had kept swimming even after whatever passed for consciousness had flickered out. Muscle memory. Momentum. The same thing that carried him through each workday, through each carefully maintained friendship that had run its course, through each night alone in his too-expensive condo.

He didn't respond. Instead he stood, went to the kitchen, poured himself a drink, and watched the city lights through his window—thousands of other people, tethered to their own cables, swimming through their own aquariums, pretending not to notice that something essential had died years ago.