Goldfish in the Disconnect

Marcus stood barefoot in the kitchen, watching the goldfish circle its bowl in endless, stupid loops. The power had died three hours ago when lightning struck the transformer down the block, and Sarah hadn't come home from work.

She'd left her phone charger on the counter—a white coiled cable like a snake she'd forgotten to feed. He picked it up, feeling the ridiculous urge to call her, even though service had been dead since the storm began.

They'd been fighting for weeks. Little things at first. The way she left her hair in the drain. How he worked late at the cable company, coming home smelling like other people's offices. Then bigger things. The mortgage on the house they'd bought in that optimistic, terrifying spring of 2020. The way they'd stopped looking at each other across the dinner table.

The goldfish—Bubbles, because Sarah had named it with that particular brand of irony she'd cultivated in grad school—nosed the glass. Marcus had won it at a company carnival three months ago, during that brief period when they'd tried to pretend everything was fine. Sarah had laughed when he brought it home, said it looked like him: small, orange, perpetually surprised to be alive.

Now the house felt enormous without her. The storm outside battered the windows, but the silence inside was worse. He found himself thinking about bears—how they hibernated through winters, how some animals just knew when to shut down and wait for better conditions. Maybe they should have hibernated instead of fighting. Maybe they should have just slept through it.

He poured whiskey into a coffee mug and considered the goldfish. It was probably hungry. Probably wondering why its human was standing in the kitchen in his boxers, drinking whiskey and crying over a dead marriage.

"We're just like you," he told it, slurring slightly. "Going in circles. Getting nowhere."

The key turned in the lock. Sarah stepped inside, dripping wet, her hair plastered to her face like a dark halo. She looked at him—really looked at him—for the first time in months.

"The power's out," he said.

"I can see that."

"I fed the fish."

"Okay."

They stood there in the dark kitchen, illuminated only by the intermittent flash of lightning, and Marcus realized something with sudden, terrible clarity: they were going to have to decide. Either stay in this loop or break it.

"I love you," he said, because it seemed like the thing to say. "I think. I don't know anymore."

Sarah moved toward him, water dripping from her hair onto the floor. She didn't touch him. She just stood there, illuminated by another flash of lightning, looking exhausted and beautiful and like she might leave if he made the wrong move.

"The fish," she said finally. "Is it still alive?"

He checked the bowl. "Yeah. Still going in circles."

She laughed, a short, sharp sound. "Well," she said. "That's something, anyway."

The lights flickered on. The cable box rebooted with a cheerful chime. And in that moment of sudden, terrible clarity, Marcus understood that some things survived the storm. Some things didn't. The difference wasn't always up to them.