The Aquarium

I watched him eat cereal that morning, the spoon clicking against the bowl with that same mechanical rhythm he'd had for three years. That was when the word first crystallized in my mind: zombie. Not the Hollywood kind with exposed brains and hunger for brains, but something worse — someone who had died inside and kept showing up for work anyway.

He didn't notice I'd stopped eating. He was absorbed in his iphone, thumb scrolling through feeds, mouth slightly open, eyes glassy and unfocused. The screen reflected in his pupils like a tiny, more vivid world than this kitchen with its peeling linoleum and the silence that had grown comfortable as a old sweater.

"I went for a run this morning," I said, just to see if he'd hear me.

"Mmph."

Running had become my only real thing. Five a.m., dark streets, my breath pluming in the cold, legs pumping, heart actually beating for once. For those thirty minutes, I was something other than a wife who had somehow become furniture. The pavement remembered me even if he didn't.

The goldfish in the corner tank swam to the glass, orange tail flicking. We'd bought it on our honeymoon, seven years and a whole lifetime ago. Named it Lucky because we were young and stupid. Now it just circled the same plastic castle, day after day, and I wondered if it remembered the ocean of our beginning or if three seconds really was all it had.

I stood up, chair scraping loud.

"I'm leaving, David."

"Okay, have a good one," he said, still not looking up from his phone.

That was it. No argument. No what-do-you-mean. No please-don't-go. Just the automatic response you give to someone who says they're running to the store.

I packed a bag. Called my sister. Let myself believe that somewhere out there, there was a life where someone would look at me like I was the entire fucking ocean instead of just furniture they kept moving around.

The goldfish watched me walk out the door.

For the first time in seven years, Lucky and I finally understood each other.