Dead Things Float

The goldfish was dead when I got home from the call center. Not floating at the top—just hovering near the fake plastic plant, gills barely moving, that distinctive zombie-like stillness that says something's given up.

Marcus was already there, sitting on the couch with the remote in his hand, eyes fixed on the cable news crawler like it might suddenly reveal the meaning of his life. Another twelve-hour day, another night of watching other people's disasters scroll by while our own accumulated in drifts around us.

"Fish is dying," I said.

"Hmm," he said. Not a question. Just acknowledgment.

I'd bought the goldfish three months ago, on impulse, after my promotion—that hollow victory that came with a private office and the realization that I'd be spending my forties becoming the kind of person who needed career counselors to explain why I wasn't happy. The fish was supposed to be companionship. Something alive in a apartment that felt increasingly like a museum exhibit of a marriage.

We used to swim together, Marcus and I. There was a lake near our first apartment, and we'd go at midnight, drunk on cheap wine and new love, floating on our backs while he told me about the novel he'd write someday. Now his novel was a file on his computer last modified four years ago, and I couldn't remember the last time I'd been underwater.

"Flush it," Marcus said, without looking away from the screen. "Or whatever you do with dead fish."

I watched the goldfish drift upward, finally surrendering to buoyancy. Dead things float. The living—they have to keep swimming just to stay in place.

"You know," I said, "goldfish are supposed to have three-second memories. Maybe it's the lucky one."

Marcus turned then. For the first time in months, he really looked at me, and I could see the recognition in his eyes—that we were both just pretending not to be dead already, suspended in the water between the bottom and the surface, not swimming, not sinking, just hovering.

"What are you saying?" he asked.

The truth was, I didn't know anymore. But I went into the bedroom and packed anyway.