The reception aquarium

The filter surfaces every forty seconds, a soft mechanical cough, and for a moment the water goes cloudy at the intake before clearing again. This is, in most waiting rooms, the only reliable rhythm in the building. The receptionist's phone rings at no fixed interval. The now-serving number advances at the pace of other people's problems. The filter does not care about any of that, and keeps its forty seconds regardless of how the room is doing. Inside, a single fish patrols a loop it did not choose, passing the plastic plant on the left, the ceramic castle on the right, and back, at a pace slightly faster than the second hand of the clock above the door. Algae accumulates on the back glass at a rate the front desk finds easier to ignore than to schedule around, so the tank is usually cleaned on a Tuesday, whichever Tuesday someone remembers. Children press their palms flat against the glass and the fish continues its loop on the other side, unbothered. The bubbles rise in a column that never wavers, tethered to a stone at the bottom that has not moved in years. What the fish is meant to be watching remains unclear; that it keeps circling, past the same plastic plant and the same castle, is simply the most dependable thing the room has to offer, filter aside.

H. G. Plimsoll