What the Goldfish Knows

The office was silent at 11 PM, fluorescent lights humming their low-frequency complaint. Elena sat at her desk, staring at the goldfish bowl on the reception counter. The fish—Caroline had named him Bartholomew—swam in endless laps, his orange scales catching the sterile light.

She should have left hours ago. Instead she was reviewing the quarterly projections again, as if the numbers might magically rearrange themselves into something that wouldn't require layoffs. The vitamin C supplements in her desk drawer mocked her. She'd started taking them after her mother's scare, the way thirty-somethings do when mortality suddenly stops being abstract.

"You're still here."

She jumped. David from Accounting stood in the doorway, holding a water bottle. He was forty-something, divorced, the kind of man who wore ties even on casual Fridays. They'd slept together twice at the Christmas party. Neither had mentioned it since.

"Just finishing up," she said.

He came closer, leaned against her desk. "The goldfish looks depressed."

"He's a goldfish, David. His emotional life is probably limited to 'hungry' and 'not hungry.'"

"Maybe he's wiser than us." David unscrewed his water bottle. "You know, in the wild, goldfish have a three-second memory. Here, he's trapped in glass with nowhere to hide, remembering everything."

She looked at Bartholomew swimming his patient circuits. "That's a myth, actually. They remember for months."

"Huh." He took a sip of water. "I saw a fox this morning. In the parking lot."

"At 6 AM?"

"Yeah. Just standing there, watching me unlock my car. We looked at each other for maybe ten seconds. Then it trotted off toward the woods behind the building." He paused. "I felt like it knew something I didn't."

"Like what?"

"Like how to leave." He set down the water bottle. His hand brushed her arm. "Elena, you're thirty-four. You're still letting this place own you."

"And you're forty-seven and you're still here too."

"Fair." He smiled wearily. "But I'm not sleeping with my receptionist while pretending it didn't happen."

Her stomach dropped. "David—"

"I'm not asking for anything. I'm just saying. The fox left. The goldfish stays. One of them's happy."

He walked out, leaving his half-full water bottle on her desk.

Elena looked at Bartholomew, swimming his endless loop in the fluorescent-lit silence. She thought about the fox, wild and choosing its own path. She opened her drawer, palmed the bottle of vitamins, and dropped them in the trash.

Then she turned off her computer, picked up David's water bottle, and walked out into the night.