The Goldfish Incident

I looked like a zombie after three days of finals week. My eyes were basically swimming in caffeine at this point, and I'm pretty sure I hadn't slept since Tuesday.

"Dude, you need to get out," Marcus said, throwing a balled-up napkin at my head. "You're haunting the library like a literal ghost. We're going to Jenna's party tonight."

I stared at him. "I can't. I have to finish this bio paper on plant genetics and also I have the social battery of a wet sock."

"Bro." Marcus gave me that look. The one that said I was being ridiculous. "Remember freshman year when you ate that spinach wrap at lunch and spent the rest of the day with green teeth? And you still survived?" He paused. "Barely, but you survived."

That was uncalled for. The Green Teeth Incident of 2023 was supposed to be ancient history.

But here's the thing about Marcus—we'd been best friends since seventh grade, back when I still wore graphic tees unironically and he had that unfortunate middle-part phase. He knew exactly how to drag me out of my overthinking spiral.

"Fine," I groaned. "But I'm leaving by ten."

The party was already chaotic when we showed up. Jenna's house smelled like coconut candles and teenage desperation. I grabbed a soda and immediately regretted everything.

Then I saw The Tank in the corner of the living room.

It was supposed to be aesthetic—a little bowl with a goldfish swimming around looking depressed as hell. But this fish wasn't just depressed. This fish was living its best chaotic life, doing full laps like it was training for the Olympics.

"That fish has more rizz than both of us combined," I whispered.

Marcus snorted. "Watch it be Jenna's ex's revenge pet or something."

Some girl I didn't know—freshman, maybe—reached in to tap the glass, and suddenly the goldfish went FULL zombie mode. It turned belly-up, floated to the top, and just...

checked out.

"OH MY GOD IT'S DEAD" someone screamed.

"Is it playing dead?" I asked, genuinely concerned. "Is that a thing fish do?"

"Bro, it's literally not breathing," Marcus said, like the certified genius he was.

Suddenly I was surrounded by a circle of grieving teenagers. Someone was already filming a eulogy for TikTok. Another person was aggressively Googling "fish funeral rites" and "can you flush a fish at a party."

And then—THEN—the fish just casually flipped back over and continued swimming like nothing happened.

"WAIT," I yelled. "It's alive!"

"That fish just pulled the biggest plot twist of 2026," Marcus said, losing his mind.

Jenna appeared, looking stressed. "Okay, WHO put Frank in the punch bowl?"

We all looked at each other. No one had answers. Only questions.

Later that night, sitting on Marcus's driveway and eating cold pizza, I realized something: maybe being a teenager was just about surviving random chaos and pretending like everything was fine. The goldfish got it. We were all just swimming around, occasionally playing dead, and hoping no one noticed the spinach in our teeth.

"We're never living this down, are we?" I asked.

"Nah," Marcus grinned. "But at least you didn't spend Friday night haunting the library."

He had a point. Being a zombie was exhausting. Sometimes you had to just flip over and keep swimming.