The Goldfish at Sunset

The orange peel curled on the counter like a question mark, already drying at the edges. She'd left it there that morning—three months ago, or four? Marcus couldn't remember anymore. The cable box blinked 12:00 in that endless red loop, mocking him with its suspended time.

He was forty-three and learning that grief wasn't a sudden storm but a slow accumulation of absences. First it was the small things: her spinach feta preference at the grocery store. Then the larger silences: the empty side of the bed, the way the coffee maker seemed too loud without her morning chatter to muffle it.

The goldfish—Bubbles, she'd named him with that crooked grin—swam in lonely circles in the bowl on the windowsill. Marcus had forgotten to feed him twice this week. The fish was probably depressed. He understood the feeling.

"You're projecting onto a fish," his sister had said during their last strained phone call. "He's fine. You're the one who's drowning."

She wasn't wrong. Marcus had taken to leaving the TV on all night, some cable news channel that droned on about politics and wars, anything to fill the apartment with the illusion of human presence. The blue light flickered against the walls, casting shadows where memories used to live.

The orange peel was still there. He should throw it away. It was probably rotting underneath.

Instead, he walked to the windowsill and sprinkled flakes into the bowl. The goldfish darted up, breaking the surface with that tiny gasp of a mouth, alive after all.

"Sorry, buddy," Marcus whispered.

He picked up the orange peel. It was stiff now, fragile as old paper. He dropped it into the trash can where it landed softly, almost silently, like the end of something important that you barely noticed until it was already gone.