Amnesia in the Chlorinated Deep

The pool at the Best Western smelled of chlorine and cheap decisions. Elena sat on the plastic lounge chair, nursing her third gin and tonic, watching Marcus float on his back like a bloated corpse. They'd come here to save their marriage, or at least to document its final moments with the dignity of a proper wake.

"You look like a zombie," she said, not unkindly. Marcus blinked water from his eyes and turned toward her. He'd been staring at the rust-stained ceiling for twenty minutes.

"I'm thinking."

"About what? Your ex-wife? The merger you're pretending won't destroy your department?"

"About the goldfish we had," he said. "The one that lived seven years. What was its name?"

She stared at him. It had been her fish. She'd named it. She'd flushed it. "That's what you're thinking about? While your mother's in hospice and I'm two miscarriages deep and neither of us can remember the last time we—"

"What was its name, El?"

A fox darted through the parking lot behind him—sleek orange thing carrying something in its jaws, probably a rat, maybe a shoe. She watched it vanish into the strip mall shadows. That fox knew what it wanted. That fox had purpose.

"Winston," she said. "His name was Winston." She'd called him Finch, but let him have this.

Marcus propelled himself to the pool's edge, dripping wet, looking suddenly smaller than she remembered. "I wanted a dog instead. Remember? I said a dog was a real pet."

"You said a goldfish was basically a decorative toilet."

"I was wrong." He hoisted himself up, water cascading off his protruding ribs. "Fish just keep swimming. They don't know they're in a glass box." He looked at her with eyes that were finally, terrifyingly awake. "We're in a glass box, El. We've been dead for years. Just—floating."

Elena felt something crack inside her chest. The fox emerged from the shadows, paused at the pool's edge, and watched them with intelligent, bored eyes.

"So," Marcus said. "What now?"

She finished her drink. "Now we stop pretending."