Memory Against the Dying of the Light

The goldfish circled his bowl, orange scales catching the afternoon light that slanted through our bedroom window. Three seconds, they say. That's the span of a goldfish's memory. Sometimes I envied him.

"You're not listening," Marcus said, sitting on the edge of the bed with his head in his hands. The MLM presentation materials were spread across the duvet like votive offerings. "This isn't a pyramid scheme. It's opportunity distribution."

"It's a pyramid, Marcus. The structure is literally a pyramid. You recruit people who recruit people who recruit people—"

"That's cynical. That's why you're stuck in that cubicle while I'm building something." He looked up, eyes hollowed out by twelve months of sleepless nights and dwindling savings. "You know what your problem is? You're comfortable being a zombie."

The word hung between us, heavier than it should have been. Because he wasn't entirely wrong. I had been sleepwalking through our marriage for years, showing up, doing what was required, feeling less and less each time. The goldfish made another loop. Maybe he wasn't forgetting. Maybe he just kept finding the same rock interesting.

"What about the sphinx riddle?" I asked quietly.

"What?"

"The riddle. What walks on four legs in the morning, two at noon, three in the evening. The answer is 'man'—but the real answer is that we spend our whole lives crawling toward something, standing up to reach for it, then leaning on things we spent our reaching phase accumulating."

Marcus stared at me. For a moment, the old spark—the man I fell in love with eight years ago, the one who made me laugh until wine came out my nose—flickered behind his eyes.

"I'm trying to build us a life, Sarah."

"You're trying to buy one. There's a difference."

The goldfish rose to the surface, mouth opening and closing in silent repetition. I realized I didn't know what we were fighting about anymore—not really. The business. The money. Or that somewhere along the way, we'd become strangers who happened to share a bed and a fish.

"I'm late for work," I said.

He didn't stop me.

Later, standing in the elevator with other sleep-deprived adults in wrinkled clothes, I watched the numbers light up: 3, 4, 5, 6, ascending like questions without answers. My phone buzzed. Marcus.

I thought about the goldfish, making endless circles in his bowl. Maybe three seconds of memory wasn't a curse. Maybe it was a way of never becoming bored with the present. Maybe forgetting was its own kind of wisdom.

I turned off my phone and stepped into the office, where the dead walked purposefully toward goals they couldn't remember choosing.