The Ghost in the Glass Bowl

The goldfish had been swimming in the same ellipse of water for three years, its orange scales dulling in the kitchen light. Mark watched it pulse its gills, wondered if it remembered the deeper tank it had lived in before, or if memory was something that dissolved like sugar in cold water.

He poured coffee — his fourth cup — and felt his heart stutter. Sarah was still asleep upstairs, their marriage now a zombie that refused to stay buried. They'd said everything worth saying six months ago in the kitchen, right by the fish bowl. Now they just moved through the same rooms, occupiers of a shared life that had hollowed out from the inside.

The cat, a ragged calico named Penny that Sarah had rescued from behind a dumpster, wound around Mark's ankles. She was the only thing in the house that still demanded something from him — food, mostly, occasionally attention. She'd killed two goldfish before this one, batting them out of the bowl during dinner parties, sleek and terrible. Sarah had cried both times. Mark had just wondered what went through the cat's mind in that moment between impact and death.

"You're going to be late," Sarah said from the doorway. She looked like she hadn't slept either. Her robe was stained with coffee near the hem.

"I know."

"The fish looks dead."

"He's not. He's thinking."

She laughed, actually laughed, and the sound startled them both. "God, Mark. You're the only person who'd attribute consciousness to a creature that forgets things every three seconds."

"Maybe that's the point," he said, and then the coffee was gone and he was grabbing his bag and the moment had collapsed into something unsaid.

At work, his boss asked if he was okay. Mark said yes. He typed numbers into spreadsheets and felt like a zombie himself, animated by caffeine and routine. The goldfish was probably still swimming its endless loop. The cat was probably sleeping in the patch of sunlight on the rug. Sarah was probably at her desk, too.

He came home to find the fish bowl overturned on the kitchen floor, water everywhere, no fish.

Penny sat nearby, tail curled around her paws, looking profoundly unimpressed.

Mark found the goldfish behind the refrigerator, its orange eye still open, staring at something he couldn't see.

Sarah would be home in an hour. They'd have to decide whether to get another one, or finally admit that some things, once you lose them, you don't get back.