Seven Second Memory
The baseball drifted through the humid August air, a white sphere against twilight, and David's phone buzzed in his pocket. Again. He didn't check it. He couldn't remember the last time he'd gone three minutes without his iPhone, couldn't remember the last time he'd sat beside his father without the invisible tether of work emails and crisis notifications stretching between them.
"You still keeping those fish?" his father asked, eyes on the field where the batter swung and missed.
"Yeah. Two of them."
"Fish die a lot. Your mother had some, back before."
"They're supposed to have seven-second memories," David said, then wished he hadn't. His father hated scientific facts, dismissed them as killjoy truths. "That way they don't get bored swimming in circles."
His father turned to him, really looked at him, for the first time all evening. "You think that's a blessing?"
David thought about his phone, the marriage dissolution messages from his wife, the project deadline emails, the memory of how his daughter's laugh sounded when she was three. He thought about the goldfish in his apartment, translucent fins trailing through filtered water, encountering the same plastic castle every seven seconds like it was new.
"Maybe," David said. "Sometimes."
The crowd roared. Someone hit a home run. His father's face transformed, something breaking open behind his eyes, and David realized with sickening clarity that his father had forgotten what they were fighting about. Had forgotten years ago. Just kept swimming the same route, the same arguments, encountering David like he was new every time.
His phone buzzed again.
David reached into his pocket and pulled out the iPhone, thumb hovering over the screen. Then he set it on the concrete between his feet, screen down, dark mirror reflecting stadium lights.
"Dad," he said. "Tell me about the time you caught that foul ball."
His father smiled, began a story David had heard twelve times, but this time David listened like it was the first. Like maybe it could be.