The Burden of Swimming

The goldfish circled its bowl on Elena's desk, orange tail flickering in the fluorescent office light. Three years she'd worked at Meridian Analytics, and somehow she'd become the office aquarium keeper by default. The fish, paradoxically named Memory, had survived three managers and two reorgs.

"You look like a zombie today," Marcus said, appearing at her cubicle entrance. "That audit report killing you?"

Elena saved her spreadsheet and turned. Marcus was the kind of man who called himself a "baseball guy" despite not having played since little league. His framed Yankees photos were the only personal items in his sterile office.

"Just tired," she said. "My mother's bear was finally put down yesterday."

Marcus paused. "Your mother's... bear?"

"Stuffed. From her childhood. She'd had it restored twice. The taxidermist said there was nothing left to preserve." It wasn't entirely a lie. The bear had been real once, in some way. In the way her marriage had been real, before it became something she just discussed in past tense at dinner parties.

Outside, lightning cracked the sky—a violence of white that made the office windows rattle. Everyone looked up from their monitors, collective flinch.

"Storm's coming," Marcus said, already moving on. "Hey, about the Henderson presentation—"

Elena's phone vibrated. Her ex-husband. The third time this week.

She watched Memory make another endless loop. They said goldfish had three-second memories, but it was a myth. Memory remembered when Elena forgot to feed her. Memory remembered which side of the bowl got the most light. Memory carried the whole history of their small, wet world in that orange body.

"You're lucky," Elena whispered to the bowl. "You only have to remember what fits in three gallons."

The phone stopped vibrating. The lightning flashed again, closer this time. Somewhere in the distance, thunder rolled like the ghost of something enormous, something that might have once mattered.

She opened her email and began drafting a resignation letter. Outside, the rain finally began to fall, and Memory continued her patient circles, bearing the weight of remembering everything, three seconds at a time.