The Aquarium of Lost Things
Marcus stared at the goldfish bowl, watching the orange speck circle endlessly in its own waste. Sarah had bought it two months before she left—a test, she'd called it. If we can keep this alive, maybe we're ready.
The fish wasn't dead yet. Neither was their marriage, technically.
He cracked open his daily vitamin pack—something Sarah had switched him to after his thirty-fifth physical. The B-complex pill was bright yellow, ridiculous in its optimism. He swallowed it without water, feeling it scrape down his throat like all the things he'd never said.
On the television, the baseball game crawled toward the ninth inning. He didn't care about either team, but he kept the volume low, a murmur of American pastoral that filled the apartment's silences. He'd watched every game since she left, learning the rhythm of something that could be won or lost in clear, clean innings. Unlike whatever this was.
"You need to change the water," his sister had told him yesterday. "The fish can't live in that."
"I don't know how," he'd admitted, and something in his chest had cracked open.
The baseball game went to commercial. He found himself kneeling before the fishbowl, his reflection distorted in the curved glass. Who was he without her? The man who couldn't keep a goldfish alive? The man who took vitamins out of habit, not hope?
His phone buzzed. Sarah. His breath caught.
"I'm coming by tomorrow," she'd text. "For my things."
He typed three different responses before settling on: Okay.
The goldfish rose to the surface, mouth opening and closing in silent repetition. Marcus stood up, turned off the television, and carried the bowl to the kitchen sink. His hands shook as he poured out two-thirds of the cloudy water. The fish darted wildly in the fresh space he'd created.
Maybe some things could survive being upended. Maybe tomorrow wasn't an ending but a different beginning.
He placed the bowl on the windowsill where the morning light would find it. Then he sat in the darkening apartment and waited.