The Goldfish at the Apex

Marion stared at the goldfish bowl on her desk, its single occupant circling in slow, infinite loops. The fish—named Corporate, because irony—had survived three rounds of layoffs and two reorgs. She envied it sometimes.

"You're at the top of your pyramid," she whispered, tapping the glass. Corporate blinked, unimpressed.

The corporate pyramid. She'd spent fifteen years climbing it, stepping on throats and smiling through meetings where words like "synergy" and "right-sizing" masked the blood on the floor. Yesterday, HR had offered her a hat: a literal retirement package with a ceremonial hard hat engraved with "MISSION ACCOMPLISHED." She was forty-five, expendable, being politely excused from the building she'd helped construct.

Her phone buzzed. David. Again.

"I'm not signing the papers, David."

"Marion, the cat needs insulin. The house needs—"

"The house needs you to get a job that doesn't require me to sign away my stock options."

She hung up. At home, her cat—a calico named Spreadsheet—would be waiting, unaware that Marion's healthcare ended in three weeks. Spreadsheet had been a gift from David when they both still believed in the pyramid scheme of upward mobility. Now the cat was just another mouth to feed in a economy that had decided she was obsolete.

The goldfish rose to the surface, mouth opening and closing in silent petition. Food. Always food. Even here, at the apex of nothing, someone was hungry.

Marion dropped an algae pellet into the bowl. Corporate descended upon it with the voracious enthusiasm of a banker spotting a loophole.

Tomorrow she would clear her desk. Tomorrow she would pack her hat box and her plant and her fifteen years of accumulated things. But tonight, she sat in the empty office, watching the goldfish swim its endless laps, and understood for the first time that the pyramid had always been a tomb. The only difference was, Corporate had figured out how to enjoy being buried alive.