The Aquarium of Small Mercies

Elena stared at the orange plastic bottle on her desk—a **vitamin** supplement that promised to fix everything from fatigue to existential dread. It was 2 AM, and the glow of her monitor was the only light in her apartment, the loose **cable** from her headphones tangling around her coffee mug like a dead snake.

She'd spent another evening editing corporate videos, polishing lies about products that would break within six months. Her apartment, meanwhile, was full of things that couldn't be fixed: the leaking faucet, her mother's silence, and the **goldfish** she'd bought on impulse three months ago, now swimming alone in its bowl because she'd forgotten fish needed companions.

The goldfish—she'd named him Barry after the **baseball** player her ex-husband had worshipped—floated to the surface, mouth opening and closing in silent judgment. Barry the baseball player had been traded to another team. Barry the goldfish was stuck with Elena, who could barely keep a plant alive, let alone a creature that required regular feeding.

Her phone buzzed. Marcus, again. The coworker who'd made her laugh during her darkest days after the divorce, the one who'd brought her emergency coffee and listened to her complain about the pharmaceutical industry's lies. They'd been dancing around something for months—a tentative, fragile thing that felt more dangerous than any pitch Barry the baseball player had ever thrown.

She picked up the bottle of vitamins. The label promised mental clarity, emotional balance. What she really needed was the courage to either text Marcus back or let him go for good. What she needed was to remember that the goldfish bowl, small as it was, was still enough room to swim.

Elena dropped the vitamin into the trash can. Then she picked up her phone, her thumb hovering over Marcus's name. Somewhere in the apartment, a clock ticked. Tomorrow, she decided. Tomorrow she would buy Barry a companion. Tonight, she would type the message she'd been drafting in her head for weeks.

The screen illuminated her face as she began to type: "I don't want to be alone anymore."