I killed the office fish. It was deliberate and watching it floating and lifeless gave me a strange wave of relief that I hadn’t felt for a very long time. I had watched this fish live its dull life day in and day out for months. I was connected to the poor thing. It swam aimlessly round and round in the exact same way I aimlessly fulfilled my days. In and out. Typing round and round the clock in what felt like a useless, repetitive round of completely compulsory 24 hours.

If I had been swimming like the fish, I probably would have drowned. A free ticket out. I was so effortlessly happy that the fish had died. The week before I had imagined myself swimming and just the thought had forced me to sit down again. The wheels of the chair slid slightly as I sunk my weight back into it. I thought of my lost potential and started typing again.

That week I had had another pointless argument with Tom. Tom and I have been in a relationship for six years now, and the longer it lasted the more it felt like swimming through treacle. I couldn’t end it, I didn’t really want to, but this grey cloud of pointlessness had slid into my consciousness and I no longer felt I had the power to put effort into anything.

This hopelessness had entwined itself within me slowly. At first, I started feeling like I had studied the wrong thing. Like I wanted to cancel plans. Like I didn’t have any real friends. Then the arguing with Tom had started. Relentless and pointless. We’d argue about everything. It seemed to me they meant nothing, but the sheer quantity of them built up and soon it felt like a wall between us. Communicating was kept to a minimum. We didn’t fuck much anymore. Maybe once a month in a monogamous missionary pose. I didn’t even bother to fake the noises of pleasure any more, waiting politely for him to finish and then washing his scent away immediately in the shower. It had turned into a bad habit. I fucked so I wouldn’t lose him entirely, though I wasn’t sure if I really cared about that anymore either.

I had always been a good girl. I didn’t take drugs, smoke or drink too much, I was the fairly sensible one. The one set to settle early and have dogs and a child by 28. I didn’t love my job and had been moved last year to a more demanding role for the same pay. That is the only major change I can pinpoint that could have influenced this new me. I hated it there. That fucking fish made me so depressed.

I felt the change from the inside out. My clothes, body and face were the last part that started transforming into this stranger I no longer recognised as myself. I felt like I was floating above my body, hearing the bullshit that spewed from my mouth and watching as I did the same thing day in day out. Made the same mistakes day in day out. Wound up Tom for a sadistic-fun I didn’t reep joy from, only to create a new problem that never really existed, dramatising it in the hope it would make me feel something, day in day out.

Though I hated work, it had become one of my favourite places. There, it was socially acceptable to complain. I’d complain every Monday about wasting my life away with my 40 hour weeks, and how I had no time to myself anymore, all the while spending most of my free time unsure of what to do and wanting to be back in my bubble of security where I could ignore my life and get on with a mindless task.

As the fish swam round and round, my life flashed before my eyes. I felt a wave of panic. Was this really it? Forever? Tom wanted me to get help but I didn’t see the problem. He kept telling me he loved me but I stopped believing him. The fish swam round and round. Tom kept buying me gifts, he kept arranging “fun” things for us to do. He wanted to do things for me and I couldn’t understand why. The fish swam round and round. Tom had proposed to me last week and I had looked back blankly. He had tried to kiss me, told me I was the most important thing. He wanted to fuck me and remind me how nice that could be. I hadn’t answered and hadn’t fucked him. The fish swam round and round. Tom had gotten angry and shouted at me that he would leave me if I didn’t start responding. I was blank again. I smoked a cigarette, (a new habit I was trying). The fish swam round and round. Tom grabbed the cigarette from my hand and shook me hard. He had a tear in his eye and fell to his knees as if begging me to come back. He said he felt like he didn’t know me. I looked back at him and felt more empty than ever before. I went outside and smoked another cigarette. The fish swam round and round.

The entire time my brain fogged over, I lost my ability to think, I felt like nothing and I felt like no one that god damn fish swam round and round and round. It nauseated me. It started as a tiny niggling feeling and eventually, I became sure. The fish was the source. It must be. I decided that the only way for me to get my life back on track was to kill it. I started to feel twinges of usefulness and a sense of purpose as I spent my next week mapping out the movement of every colleague, aiming to find a perfect time to kill the fish. I was fixated. Instead of doing my job, I made a spreadsheet that put every detail into place, so I could kill hassle-free. I sat up at night thinking of methods. How best to kill a fish? I thought up possible obstacles. Do fish scream? Can they make noises out of water? I started researching. I googled “10 most effective ways to kill a goldfish”. I felt myself stirring inside the capsule that had been my body, ready to wake up and take control again.

The night before the fish died, I fucked Tom. It came out of nowhere, I was thrilled by the prospect of power my perfect plan extracted from me. I walked into work consciously for the first time in months. As I had planned, everyone was late today. I walked over to the bowl, the place the fish called home and watched it swim. Round and round. I felt no remorse. I put my hand inside the clear plastic sandwich bag I had brought as my weapon and picked the fish out of the water. I watched it struggle to breathe, and I felt more connected to it than ever. I had been the fish out water and now it was. I watched it until it was still. It suffocated on the real world.

I let out a sigh of relief and felt something again. I put the fish back in its comfort zone. It floated. I wrote a note to my boss quitting my job and ran all the way home to Tom. It was the beginning again and I felt reborn.