The Art of Circular Motion

The goldfish had survived two months, three days, and four failed attempts to replace it with something more dignified. Martin found himself explaining this to the woman in section 14, row B, seat 7, while they both pretended to watch a baseball game that neither of them cared about.

"You're not from here," she said. Her name badge identified her as Jenna from Marketing.

"Minor league affiliate scouting," Martin lied. "Corporate synergy."

"Right." She nodded toward the field, where a player in a dirty uniform was scratching himself in a way that suggested he'd given up on dignity years ago. "You ever feel like you're running in circles? Like, literally running in circles, but also... spiritually?"

Martin stared at her. The goldfish was still swimming in its bowl back at his hotel, oblivious to his increasing desperation to be anywhere else but this touring production of Base(a)ball: The Musical.

"I run," he said. "Every morning. Five K."

"That's not running, honey. That's exercise. I mean the other kind." She gestured vaguely at the world beyond the stadium. "The running where you keep ending up in the same places, talking to the same people, making the same mistakes."

The crowd cheered. Someone hit something. The goldfish was probably doing laps in its bowl, living its best circular life.

"My ex-wife got me the fish," Martin heard himself say. "She said it matched my personality."

Jenna smiled, and suddenly Martin noticed the lines around her eyes, the careful way she held her phone like it might ring with news she'd been waiting forty years to receive. "Let me guess. Low maintenance. Keeps swimming even when the water gets murky. Never questions why it's in a bowl instead of an ocean."

He laughed, and it felt like the first real thing that had happened since he'd boarded this tour bus. "Something like that."

"I've been running from this promotion for six months," she confessed. "My boss thinks I'm at a conference. Instead, I'm here, watching bad baseball and talking to a man with a goldfish problem."

"The fish isn't the problem," Martin said. "The problem is I keep feeding it."

"Maybe that's not running," she suggested. "Maybe that's staying. Maybe the fish is the only honest thing you've got going."

The baseball game ended. Nobody won, really. Martin walked Jenna to her car, and when she kissed him, it tasted like cheap beer and the kind of hope that doesn't ask questions.

Three months later, the goldfish died. Martin was on a morning run when it happened, finally running toward something instead of away. He called Jenna. She told him about the job she'd finally taken, the life she was starting to build instead of avoid.

"Get another fish," she said.

"I don't want a fish," Martin said, and meant it.

"Good." She paused. "Then stop running in circles. Come here instead."

The baseball season was over. Something else was just beginning.