The Goldfish on the Windowsill

The vitamin D supplement sat untouched on Mara's desk, a small amber capsule that couldn't possibly compensate for three years of fluorescent lighting. She'd become something of a office zombie herself—moving through tasks with mechanical efficiency, her emotional range narrowed to the temperature of the breakroom coffee.

Her iphone buzzed. David again.

"We need to talk," his text read. The third one this morning.

Mara stared at the goldfish bowl on the windowsill. It belonged to Jerry from accounting before he'd been laid off in February, and somehow in the chaos of restructuring, nobody had bothered to relocate it. The fish—a surprisingly resilient creature named Bubbles—swam in endless circles, its orange scales catching the afternoon light. Sometimes Mara envied Bubbles. Three gallons of water, a pinch of flakes twice daily, and no expectations beyond continued existence.

"You're doing it again," said Elena, rolling her chair over. She was the only person in the department who still treated Mara like something other than furniture. "That thing where you forget to blink for concerning amounts of time."

"David wants to talk."

"Ah." Elena's face softened. "The 'we need to talk' talk? Or the 'I forgot our anniversary' talk?"

"The 'I've been sleeping with my coworker' talk, probably. He dropped the hint last week—that he needed more 'passion' in his life. As if passion is something you can order like office supplies."

Elena reached into her bag and produced an actual, honest-to-god dog treat. Her golden retriever, Barnaby, was currently flopped beneath Elena's desk, living his best life as an unofficial therapy animal.

"Want one?" Elena asked, breaking the treat in half. "Organic. Peanut butter. I eat them when the quarterly reports come out."

Mara laughed, surprised by the sound in her own throat. "You're terrible."

"I'm pragmatic. Pass me that vitamin, by the way. You're not going to take it, and I'm feeling something that might be scurvy or might just be existential dread."

As Elena popped the capsule, Mara's phone lit up again. Not David this time—a push notification. "Remember to breathe," it read. Some wellness app she'd downloaded during a 3 AM spiral and never deleted.

She watched Bubbles complete another lap around the bowl. The fish had been in this building longer than her marriage had lasted. The thought didn't sting as much as she expected.

"You know what?" Mara stood up, grabbing her coat. "I'm going to take Bubbles home."

"You're kidnapping a fish?"

"I'm liberating him. And then I'm going to call David and tell him he can keep his passion and his new girlfriend, because frankly, Barnaby has more emotional intelligence than he ever did."

Elena grinned. "Finally. I was wondering when you'd go zombie on this whole situation and eat some brains—or at least, eat some pride."

The vitamin D on Mara's desk remained exactly where it was. Some things, she decided, you had to source yourself.