Swimming in Circles

The goldfish bowl sat on Elena's desk, a solitary orange shape moving through its own reflection, third floor of the glass pyramid that housed Veridian Dynamics' headquarters. She'd bought it on a whim during what her therapist called her 'existential quarter-life crisis.'

'You look like a zombie,' Marcus said, leaning against her cubicle wall with coffee in hand. He was thirty-five, recently divorced, and had mastered the art of looking like he was working while actually doing nothing.

'I am a zombie,' Elena replied, not looking up from her spreadsheet. 'The corporate kind. We eat brains for breakfast and sell them back to the public by afternoon.'

Marcus laughed, but it was hollow. They'd been having this same conversation for three years. The pyramid outside shimmered in the afternoon sun, a monument to ambition that Elena no longer felt. Some days she watched the goldfish—she'd named him Sysiphus—and wondered if he was happier. He swam in endless circles, but at least he didn't know he was going nowhere.

'You're still coming to the holiday party, right?' Marcus asked. 'Sarah wants to meet you. She thinks we'd get along.'

Elena finally looked at him. 'Another setup?'

'She's not like the others.' His voice caught, just slightly. 'She's got this thing about ancient civilizations. She talks about pyramids like they're metaphorical.' He smiled. 'I think you'd like her.'

The goldfish nudged the glass, creating tiny ripples. Elena had once read that goldfish have three-second memories. Maybe that was the secret—if you forgot everything immediately, you could keep swimming the same loop forever and never realize you were trapped.

'Sure,' she said. 'Why not.'

Marcus nodded, satisfied, and walked away. Elena turned back to her spreadsheet, but her eyes drifted to the bowl. Sysiphus swam to the surface, mouth opening and closing in that silent, endless request.

She fed him. Some small mercy she could still offer.