The Goldfish at the Bottom of the Glass

The goldfish had been dead for three days before Marcus finally noticed. It floated at the top of the bowl, a sudden orange island in water that had grown cloudy with neglect. Marcus had bought it on impulse, something alive in an apartment that felt increasingly hollow after Elena left.

"You're always swimming in circles," she'd told him that night, her voice weary in a way he'd never heard before. "Going nowhere. Just like that fucking fish will."

She'd taken her hats—the collection of vintage brims and fedoras that lived on the hooks by the door—but left everything else. Marcus found himself pressing his face into her winter coat sometimes, inhaling the ghosts of her perfume and the smell of her hair, which she'd dyed a different color every six months like she was trying on new versions of herself. The last one had been copper, the color of a brand new penny.

Now it was August, and the apartment was silent except for the hum of the refrigerator and the distant crack of a baseball from the park across the street. Kids playing, maybe fathers teaching sons how to swing. Marcus's father had never done that. Had never been there for much of anything.

He poured himself another drink and watched a woman walk past his window, a wide-brimmed hat shielding her face. For a moment, his heart did something stupid and hopeful. Then she turned, and it wasn't Elena. Of course it wasn't.

Marcus fished the goldfish out with a spoon, its tiny body surprisingly heavy. He flushed it down the toilet, watching it spiral away into the city's plumbing system, joining all the other things people wanted gone. The water rushed and swallowed, and he thought about how much of his life had been spent swimming in place, waiting for something that never came.

The next morning, he bought a ticket to San Francisco. Elena had always wanted to go there. He didn't know if she was still there, if she'd want to see him. But for the first time in years, he wanted to stop swimming in circles. He wanted to see what was beyond the bowl.