The Art of Floating

The goldfish had outlived the marriage by eight months.

Maya watched it drift through the bowl, orange scales catching morning light, and wondered if fish could feel loneliness. It circled the same ceramic castle, round and round, like she circled her empty apartment in her running shoes every evening.

She'd become a zombie of her former self—showing up to work, responding to emails, smiling at the right times during meetings. Her coworkers probably didn't notice the hollow quality to her laughter. They certainly didn't notice how she'd stopped wearing her hair down since David left.

"Your hair looks professional up like that," her boss had said yesterday.

Professional. Controlled. Not wild and loose the way David used to bury his hands in it when they lay in bed on Sunday mornings, watching baseball through half-closed eyelids. The Dodgers always lost when they did that. She should've taken it as an omen.

Her phone buzzed. David's name.

She stared at it until the screen went dark, then grabbed her running shoes. She needed to move until her lungs burned, until she couldn't think about goldfish and baseball games and hands in her hair.

The neighborhood blurred past. She ran harder, thighs burning, breath coming in ragged gasps. She was thirty-four years old and starting over. She owned a goldfish that refused to die and an apartment that never felt like home.

She stopped at the edge of the park, bent double, hands on knees. A father and son played catch nearby, the baseball arcing through twilight.

The son missed. The father didn't say anything, just retrieved the ball and threw it again softer this time.

Maya straightened up, wiped sweat from her forehead, and started the long walk home. The goldfish would need feeding. She'd wear her hair down tonight. Small rebellions. She was learning she could survive them.