Catfish: The Prey

Elsie dreaded work. That wasn't a particularly original thought. Most people dreaded work. The lucky ones counted down to Friday. The unlucky ones counted down to retirement. Elsie counted down to lunch. Not because she had exciting plans. She simply liked having forty-five uninterrupted minutes where nobody expected anything from her. She slipped into her cubicle, set her bag beneath the desk, switched on her computer and watched the monitors wake one by one. The familiar glow filled the small partitioned space that would be hers until five-thirty. Home, she often thought, except nobody wanted to be here. Her inbox was already waiting. Someone, somewhere, had decided that several hundred rows of numbers urgently required moving from one spreadsheet into another. It wasn't difficult work. It was the sort of task that could be done by anyone with functioning eyesight and a reasonable tolerance for boredom. Unfortunately, Elsie possessed both. She adjusted her glasses, rested her wrists on the keyboard and began typing. Click. Tab. Type. Enter. Repeat. Hours dissolved into neat little boxes. The office hummed around her. Phones rang. Someone laughed too loudly across the room. A printer announced its existence with the enthusiasm of an ageing tractor. Elsie barely looked up. She preferred it that way. People were easier to like from several metres away. Eventually, the numbers began to blur together. She leaned back in her chair and pinched the bridge of her nose before closing her eyes for a moment. The human brain was a fascinating thing. It could memorise obscure facts about Byzantine politics after reading a Wikipedia article at two in the morning... ...yet refuse to remember whether she'd already copied Row 472. She flexed her fingers. Rolled her shoulders. Opened her eyes again. The spreadsheet was still there. How persistent. With a sigh that bordered on theatrical, she reached for her mug. Empty. Wonderful. Even the coffee had abandoned her. Her eyes drifted towards the clock in the corner of her screen. 10:37. Not close enough to lunch to justify pretending it was. Not early enough to convince herself the morning had just begun. She stared blankly at the monitor. Sometimes she wondered whether adulthood was simply a long series of passwords, spreadsheets and pretending to understand pension schemes. The thought almost made her laugh. Almost. Instead, she opened a new browser tab. Purely for morale. She typed a question into the search bar. Why do our noses run but our feet smell? A perfectly reasonable question. The internet, unsurprisingly, had an answer. It always did. Elsie smiled faintly. There was something comforting about that. No matter how strange the question, somewhere in the world another person had wondered the exact same thing. Maybe that was all human connection really was. Finding someone who had already asked your question. The smile faded as quickly as it came. She closed the browser and returned to the spreadsheet. Click. Tab. Type. Enter. Repeat. Outside her cubicle, conversations drifted past without ever quite reaching her. Inside, the silence settled comfortably around her. She preferred it. Silence didn't ask why she looked so much like her father. Silence didn't stumble over *Elspeth bint Aaf* before awkwardly asking where she was "really" from. Silence didn't compare her to her beautiful, fair-haired mother, as though the two women couldn't possibly belong to the same family. Numbers were kinder than people. Numbers didn't care what your surname was. ----- The spreadsheet won. It usually did. By the time five-thirty finally arrived, Elsie had successfully transferred several hundred rows of data, consumed two coffees, answered sixteen emails and lost what remained of her enthusiasm for capitalism. She shut down her computer. Collected her bag. Nodded politely at the handful of people still lingering around the office before making her escape. Outside, London had already slipped into its familiar evening rhythm. Commuters poured out of office buildings like someone had tipped over a very expensive anthill. Black cabs crawled through traffic. Cyclists threaded impossibly small gaps between buses. Somewhere nearby, a man was passionately arguing with nobody visible through an earpiece. Elsie tucked her hands into the pockets of her wool coat and headed towards the Underground. She liked London best when nobody expected her to speak. ---------- By the time she reached her flat, darkness had settled outside the windows. It wasn't much. A small one-bedroom flat above an ageing bakery with radiators that only believed in working when they felt appreciated. But it was hers. She kicked off her boots. Dropped her keys into the little ceramic bowl by the door. Fed the sourdough starter living on the kitchen counter. "...You're the healthiest relationship I've ever maintained." The starter offered no opinion. She appreciated that. After reheating leftovers and changing into an oversized university hoodie, Elsie curled up on the sofa with her laptop balanced across her knees. The silence settled around her again. Normally, she'd spend the evening watching documentaries she'd never finish or disappearing into Wikipedia rabbit holes. Last Tuesday, she'd somehow gone from reading about honeybees to Byzantine taxation. She still wasn't entirely sure how. Tonight, however... There was something else. A notification. She frowned. Right. She'd forgotten. During lunch, one of the women from work had somehow managed to convince half the office to download Bumble. Apparently, modern romance had become remarkably efficient. You looked at strangers for three seconds. Judged them almost entirely on five carefully selected photographs. Then collectively pretended personality mattered afterwards. What a time to be alive. Her thumb hovered over the icon. "...Absolutely not." She placed the phone on the coffee table. Folded a blanket over herself. Reached for the television remote. Three minutes later... She picked the phone back up. Curiosity was a terrible personality trait. Create your profile. "Oh no." She already disliked those words. The app asked for photographs. A short biography. Interests. Height. Occupation. What she was looking for. It was astonishing how many tiny boxes an application expected someone to squeeze an entire human being into. Occupation? Digital Fashion Stylist. Easy enough. Height? Five foot two. There was no point lying. She'd only be found out by gravity. Interests? Reading. Cooking. Museums. Classical music. Documentaries. Crafts. The app suggested adding something fun. She stared at the screen. "Occasionally remembers to water houseplants." No. Too depressing. "Can identify at least six different cheeses by taste." Oddly specific. Also unverified. She sighed. Being interesting seemed like a lot of work. Then the cursor blinked beneath another heading. About Me Elsie stared at the empty box. An entire life. Reduced to five hundred characters. "...Good luck."