Terminal Velocity

Marcus had been a **bull** in the conference room for thirty years. He charged at problems, gored competitors, left carcasses of failed careers in his wake. The merger that would've saved his division died last month, and now he was the one being led to slaughter.

He sat on the edge of his bathtub, watching the **goldfish**—that Sarah had won at a carnival two years ago, before she left—swim in slow, deliberate circles. The fish's scales had lost their metallic sheen. Its movements were sluggish. It hovered near the surface, gasping.

"You're dying too," Marcus whispered.

The fish turned one dark eye toward him, then drifted downward.

Three weeks ago, Marcus had walked into his office to find his boxes already packed. Security escorted him out like a common criminal. At fifty-two, with no hobbies, no friends outside the industry, and two children who called only when they needed money, he'd become something else entirely: a **zombie** of his former self, shambling through days without purpose, feeding on nostalgia and regret.

The goldfish rolled onto its side. Its gills fluttered, then stilled.

Marcus reached into the water, cupped the small body in his palm. It was lighter than expected, fragile as empty promises. He thought about flushing it—clean and convenient—but instead carried it to the balcony, where the city sprawled below like a Circuit board that had stopped working years ago.

He'd spent decades building an empire that now belonged to someone else. The goldfish had spent its life in a glass box, swimming the same endless loop, and still it had touched something real in Sarah, in him.

Marcus placed the fish in a potted geranium. "At least you'll feed something," he said.

Inside, his phone buzzed—an unknown number. Probably a recruiter, maybe another opportunity to charge, to gore, to pretend he wasn't already dead. He let it ring.

From the balcony, he watched the sun set over a city that had already moved on.