Goldfish Lives

The goldfish had been dead for three days before anyone noticed. That was the thing about the Hendersons' house—so much life happening all the time, so much noise and motion and scheduled activity, that the quiet death of one small creature could go entirely unnoticed. I found it floating during the Tuesday lightning storm, its copper scales catching each flash through the picture window.

I was supposed to be feeding it. Watching it. Taking care of this one small, living thing while the family was at their summer house in the Hamptons. Instead, I'd been spending my afternoons lying on their sofa, taking their vitamins—expensive designer ones I couldn't afford myself—while I stared at the ceiling and tried to figure out how my own life had become so small.

The palm reader at the carnival had said: "You're waiting for something to happen, but you're the one who has to make it happen." I'd laughed then, seventeen and certain that big things were coming. Now, at twenty-seven, I understood: nothing was coming. The goldfish hadn't been waiting for a better life. It had just swum in circles until it stopped.

The oranges in the Hendersons' kitchen bowl had started to mold in the humidity. I picked through them, finding one that was still firm, and ate it standing over the fish bowl where the dead goldfish floated. The lightning flashed again, illuminating the expensive furniture, the curated art, the evidence of a life lived at a scale I couldn't imagine.

I flushed the goldfish down the toilet. Packed the vitamins in my purse. Ate another orange, letting the juice run down my chin, not bothering to wipe it away.

The Hendersons would never know the difference. They'd come home, see the empty bowl, and assume the fish had died of natural causes or been eaten by the cat. They'd never know I'd stolen their vitamins, eaten their fruit, contemplated their entire existence while their goldfish bloated in the formaldehyde of my neglect.

Some lives are goldfish lives. Some aren't. The trick is figuring out which one you're living before you start floating at the top of the bowl.