The Empty Bowl

Marcus played padel with Elena every Tuesday night, their sneakers squeaking against the court, the rhythm of their rally mirroring the rhythm of his undoing. Forty-two years old and already sliding down the corporate pyramid, watching Elena—brilliant, ruthless, thirty-two—prepare to step into his office. His office. The one with the view.

"You're distracted," she said, smashing the ball past him. Sweat gleamed on her collarbone.

"Just tired."

"Your goldfish died again?"

He flinched. The office aquarium had become a metaphor. Three fish in six months. Each one floating belly-up when he arrived, a tiny amber eye staring at him like an accusation. Maintenance claimed it was the filter. Marcus knew better.

That night, he sat on his sofa with a whiskey and his cat, Barnaby, who regarded him with yellow eyes that seemed to say: *I saw you kiss her after the match.*

He had. In the parking lot, under floodlights, Elena's mouth tasting of mint and desperation. They were both lonely climbers on opposite slopes of the same pyramid, reaching across the chasm.

"It's just a fish," she'd told him later, against his car. "Replace it. No one will know."

He bought a new goldfish the next morning. Swallowed it in the bathroom before work, feeling the cold, weightless slide of it down his throat. Let them find no body. Let them wonder.

At the office, Elena watched him with new eyes. She knew what he'd done. She understood: in this pyramid, you either ate the small things whole, or they ate you from the inside.

Barnaby waited at home, patient as gravity. Marcus set out fresh food, poured another drink. The goldfish settled in his stomach, a cold secret, a strange comfort. Some things, he realized, you don't set free. You keep them where you can feel them swimming.