On the morning after their colleague died, the office fish wedged itself between the filter and the glass wall of its aquarium-cage. 

Armando tapped the glass.

“Is it dead?”

Meredith leaned in close.

“We should get Yuri,” she declared. “Somebody get Yuri.”

The colleague had been a well known member of the team, heralded for his dedication and for his willingness to chip in when others needed help. In the organization-wide email that announced his passing, the higher-ups had praised his knowledge, his professionalism, and his steadfast commitment to their shared goals. 

He was believed to have had an adult daughter, though confusion reigned as to her name. 

“Caitlin,” insisted some. 

“Ellen,” argued others. 

Not that anyone knew how to contact her, anyway. They had learned of his death from a friend of a friend. The subject of the email was “Sad News.”

“Hello,” it began. “I am writing with some sad news.”

The message was so effective that they had adopted both the title and the first line in their own communique. 

“Hello….”

The floor hushed when they received the message. Then, after a respectful silence, the clack-clack-clack of fingers on keyboards resumed. 

Yuri arrived with the gravitas of a man who knew how to fix things. 

“What’s going on?” 

Angelina referenced the tank and direly said, “The fish.”

Yuri unbuttoned his cuff and pulled his sleeve above his elbow. Everyone watched in astonishment as he plunged his hand into the water with no regard to temperature or chemicals or to the fact that there was a nonzero chance that a living thing was in there. He lifted the filter out of the water. Someone gasped. Yuri had unwedged the fish. Now the question was would it swim. 

“If this was a story, no one would believe it,” someone said, which everyone took as a reference to their newly dead colleague. 

He had had a reputation for making female employees cry. 

“Don’t break in front of him,” the more experienced workers would tell the newbies. “You can cry after, but don’t give him the satisfaction.”

The stall farthest from the door in the bathroom on six had been designated the “crying stall.” The janitor left an extra roll of toilet paper on top of the dispenser for this reason. The colleague knew nothing about the crying stall or about the crying itself. 

The fish was an angelfish and it was shaped like a sail. Under normal circumstances, it looked like a sail that was upright, but after Yuri freed it from the filter it looked like the sail of a boat that was heeling in the water. That’s how tilted it was. 

“That doesn’t look right.”

“Is he supposed to be sideways?”

“Is something wrong with his fin?”

“I think you mean ‘flipper.’”

The fish just floated. Everyone took it as a good sign that it didn’t float to the top, but it did not look good. 

It had been an attempt by Leadership to improve morale. They had distributed a survey soliciting ideas for ways to buck up the team. Morale was low because people worked too hard for not enough pay, but the survey didn’t ask about that. Instead, it asked about ways to “spruce up the office.” On-site massages and a keg of craft beer proved to be nonstarters, but everyone thought that a fish was a pretty good idea, even if it that probably wasn’t what the proposer meant by “office pet.” There was some question about who would take care of it. Yuri was the obvious choice. He circulated every Friday afternoon and sprayed the plants with water. Tank maintenance was right up his alley. Once that was settled it was a no-brainer. 

At first people would walk right on by but eventually they would stop. They would tap on the glass or say “good morning.” One person was overheard asking the fish, “What do you think, huh?”

For its part, the fish’s unblinking eyes made it always look attentive and its glistening body shimmied when it was spoken to. Sometimes people would consider it like they were contemplating a great piece of art; other times they would stare right past it and its darting motion would snap them back. 

Leadership was especially pleased with the new arrival. Officially, the colleague was not part of Leadership but he didn’t let that stop him. 

“See what happens when you remain open and listen to your people?” he had boasted.

He was generous at Happy Hour and would wipe down the microwave when his food splattered its walls. One day, when the temperature outside broke a hundred, he brought in four boxes of ice-cream sandwiches. 

But he also kept five ties in a desk drawer and offered them to tie-less team members on days that were not Summer Fridays. 

“Did you forget something?” he would ask, knowing full well that they hadn’t. 

Someone who had been offered a tie when the colleague had been alive recounted that story now that he was dead. His telling made it sound humorous. At the time, it was not. 

The fish remained suspended, stuck in its tilt. 

“Is it…?” someone asked. 

“I don’t know,” said another. 

“I have to go to a meeting,” said a third. “Hit me up on Slack if circumstances change.”

Yuri said, “Come on, little guy. Come on.” 

Other than Yuri, Armando and Meredith were the only two who remained. They watched in silence, afraid that anything they said would change things for the worse. 

Then something happened. If the fish had been at a 45-degree angle before, now it was at 50. Then 55, 60, 65, 70. 

It’s little fin—flipper!—had been injured, but it was just hurt, not dead. 

“Yes!” Yuri exclaimed, as the fish gained strength. “Yes!”

He pumped his fist. 

Armando sighed. 

“Phew,” he said. 

“I know,” Meredith replied. “I was afraid we were about to get another email.”

“Right,” Armando agreed. “‘Sadder News.’”

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