The Burden of Breathing

Maggie trudged through the office atrium, feeling like the corporate pyramid scheme had finally succeeded in stripping her of everything human. She was a zombie in heels—moving, speaking, even closing deals, but somewhere along the way, she'd misplaced whatever spark had once made her feel alive.

Her goldfish, Nero, swam in endless circles in his bowl on her desk, his three-second memory span starting to feel like a blessing. Maybe forgetting was the real skill she should have been cultivating all along.

"You missed the meeting," David said, leaning against her doorframe. He still wore his baseball jacket from college, the leather cracked at the elbows, holding onto some version of himself that no longer existed. "They're restructuring again."

"Let me guess," Maggie said, not looking up from her spreadsheet. "More layers to the pyramid."

"Actually, they're eliminating your department."

The words didn't land. She kept typing, columns blurring together, Nero's gentle splashing the only sound that felt real.

"Maggie?"

She'd had to bear so much in the past three years—her mother's slow decline, the divorce that had hollowed her out like a rotting tree, the way her savings had evaporated. But this somehow felt different. This was liberation disguised as disaster.

"I have a baseball bat in my car," she said suddenly.

David blinked. "What?"

"From little league. I keep it there for protection, but I've never used it." She stood up, her legs steady for the first time in months. "I'm going to drive to the ocean. I'm going to give Nero a proper home. And I'm going to figure out what happens next."

The goldfish swam to the front of his bowl, his mouth opening and closing in silent bubbles. Outside, the sun was setting, painting the sky in bruising shades of purple and gold.

"You can't just—"

"Watch me."

She picked up Nero's bowl. For the first time in three years, Maggie didn't feel like a zombie at all. She felt like someone who might, against all odds, learn how to live again.