Swimming in Circles

The lobby goldfish had been dead for three days before anyone noticed.

Maya had noticed, of course. She noticed everything these days — the way her iPhone battery died faster with each passing month, how her husband's key still turned in the lock with agonizing familiarity despite his clothes being gone from the closet, how the goldfish had stopped its ceaseless circling of the tiny bowl.

"Corporate environment," her boss had said during her performance review, his eyes not quite meeting hers. "We need someone who can navigate these waters."

She'd almost laughed. Water. She was drowning in it — the rising tide of mortgage payments on a condo she couldn't afford alone, the flood of legal documents her lawyer sent at 2 AM, the slow drip of her youth into her thirties with nothing to show for it but a corner office and a goldfish that had given up.

Maya stood before the bowl now, office dark around her. It was 11 PM on a Friday. Her iPhone sat on her desk, screen glowing with another text from her soon-to-be-ex-husband. "Found your yoga mat. Want me to drop it off?"

The fish floated near the surface, its orange scales catching the emergency exit light. It had lived its whole life in this glass sphere, swimming endless circles, fooled by its own reflection into thinking it had somewhere to go.

She reached in, her fingers breaking the water's surface tension. The fish didn't dart away anymore. It just hung there, weightless and waiting.

Her phone vibrated against the desk — a reminder that she had a dentist appointment tomorrow, another thing she'd have to figure out alone. The goldfish bumped against her fingertip, a final, tiny assertion of existence.

"Yeah," she whispered. "I know."

Maya walked out of the office leaving her phone on the desk. For the first time in months, the water felt like something she could wade through instead of something pulling her under. She'd call a locksmith in the morning. Change the locks. Start swimming somewhere new.