Zombies at the Padel Court

I stared into the bowl, watching my goldfish, Fintron, make his seventeenth loop around the plastic castle. He looked at me with those vacant, orange eyes.

"You feel me, right?" I whispered. "Like, we're both just ... circling."

Fintron blew a bubble. It rose to the water's surface and popped.

My mom's voice cut through my existential crisis: "Maya! Your vitamin! And grab your racquet — Padel practice in twenty!"

Padel. The sport my mom decided would be "my thing" sophomore year. Because apparently tennis wasn't pretentious enough.

I grabbed the chewable vitamin that tasted like artificial grape and existential dread. Then I was in the car, watching suburban houses blur past, feeling like everyone I knew was moving through life like a zombie — doing what they were supposed to do, saying what they were supposed to say, their brains slightly fogged over by the sheer weight of expectations.

At the court, Tyler was already there, looking stupidly fresh in his sleeveless top.

"Yo, you good?" Tyler asked. "You look... dead."

"Zombie mode," I muttered. "Junior year stress." I knelt to tie my shoe, my water bottle sweating beside me.

"Wanna play for real today? No going easy cause you're 'not feeling it.'"

Something snapped. Maybe it was the vitamin kicking in. Maybe it was seeing Fintron's endless loops in my mind.

"Yeah," I said, standing up. "Let's go."

We played. Really played. My body remembered what my mind had checked out from — the satisfying thwack of the ball, the way my legs moved without thought, the pure physical joy of being alive and moving. With every point, the zombie fog lifted. I wasn't circling a plastic castle anymore.

Afterward, dripping sweat, I chugged the rest of my water.

"You were fire," Tyler said, grinning. "What got into you?"

I thought about Fintron, still circling his bowl. How maybe the point wasn't to stop moving, but to choose your own loops.

"Just realized," I said, "I don't have to be a zombie. Even when I'm doing what everyone expects."

Tyler looked confused but nodded anyway.

That night, I dropped a new castle into Fintron's bowl. He swam through it like it was the most exciting thing that had ever happened.

"New loops, buddy," I said. "New loops."