Glass Bowl Drowning

The goldfish does laps in its bowl, orange fins flashing like tiny warning lights. Marcus watches it while the dog - Lucy, a rescue with anxious eyes and a bad knee - rests her head on his thigh. They're both trapped in their own containers tonight.

His iPhone buzzes on the coffee table. Sarah's name. Again.

Three years of marriage, dissolved into three missed calls and a text he still can't bring himself to read. She's probably at her sister's place. Or maybe she's not. Maybe she's swimming laps at the university pool, the one they joined together last January with resolutions they both knew were lies.

Water. It's all water lately. The rain against his windows, the condensation on his beer glass, the saltwater sting behind his eyes he refuses to acknowledge. He'd gone swimming once, in college, drunk off cheap tequila, and nearly drowned. The lifeguard had pulled him out, coughing and spluttering, while his friends laughed. That hollow feeling in his chest - that's how he feels now.

"You're like that fish," he tells Lucy, scratching behind her ears. She thumps her tail, once, against his shin. "Swimming in circles. Thinking the bowl is the whole world."

The goldfish pauses near the glass, its mouth opening and closing in tiny, desperate gasps.

Marcus picks up his iPhone. The screen lights up his living room, bright and unforgiving. One new message: *I'm coming home. We need to talk.*

His thumb hovers over the screen. Outside, thunder cracks. The goldfish continues its endless laps, oblivious to the storm brewing beyond its glass walls. Some cages are built to keep things out. Others are built to keep things in.

He deletes the message without reading it again, and waits for his own bowl to break.