The Goldfish in the Corner Office

The zombie in the mirror was me. Three years of compliance audits at Meridian Analytics had left me hollowed out, moving through fluorescent-lit days with the kind of shambling purposelessness that Romero never captured—the real horror wasn't brain hunger, but the slow erosion of caring about anything at all.

My hair had started silvering at thirty-two. I'd find strands on my keyboard sometimes, gossamer witnesses to how many hours I spent staring at spreadsheets while life happened somewhere else.

'They're watching you,' Sarah said, sliding into the chair across from me. She'd been my friend since onboarding, the kind of friend forged in shared trauma and stolen conference-room snacks. 'I saw Darren in IT with your file yesterday.'

'Spying? I don't even have access to the good databases.'

'That's not the point.' She leaned closer. 'He's building a case. Restructuring coming.'

The paranoia was contagious. In open-plan offices, everyone becomes part-time spy—monitoring bathroom breaks, noting who leaves early, cataloguing who smiles at whom in meetings. We watched each other with the tender suspicion of accomplices who might sell each other out.

I bought a goldfish that weekend. A single fantail with flowing fins like sunset clouds. I named it Aurelius, after the philosopher who wrote about how brief our time is. Goldfish have three-second memories, they say—a blessing, really. Imagine floating in your tiny kingdom, rediscovering the plastic castle every moment as a miracle. No spreadsheets, no performance reviews, no silent war with colleagues you once trusted.

Sarah stopped speaking to me after the layoffs. Her name was on the list, mine wasn't. The company kept the zombie who didn't care enough to leave. I found myself checking her social media obsessively, a digital spy monitoring the life she'd gone on to live—travel photos, a new relationship, color returning to her cheeks.

Aurelius died six months later. I buried him in a houseplant, his tiny body already dissolving into something larger than himself. Some days I wake and catch my reflection, the gray spreading through my hair like weather, and I wonder if this is what growth feels like—the slow transformation into someone you might not recognize, carrying the memory of who you were like a goldfish carries the memory of a castle, rediscovering yourself again and again, each time with slightly less wonder.

The zombie is still here. He's learned to wear a tie.