The Goldfish at the End of the Line

The coaxial cable lay severed on the floor like a dead snake, its copper entrails exposed to the fluorescent lights of the server room. Sarah had been running from the conversation for three weeks, ever since Marcus died, but grief has a way of finding you — even in the sub-basement of a data center at 2 AM.

"You need to go home," David said, leaning against the server rack. He wasn't really a friend anymore, not since the funeral when he'd said Marcus's death was 'for the best' because 'he was suffering anyway.' Some things you can't unhear.

"I'm fine. Just finishing the migration."

"You're swimming in it, Sarah." David's voice softened. "I saw you standing by the pond on your lunch break yesterday. Just staring at the water."

The goldfish pond behind their office building. Marcus had bought the first three fish himself, bright orange things with names like Einstein and Curie. Every Monday morning for three years, he'd fed them before starting his shift. Now Sarah did it, though she couldn't say why.

"They're getting big," she said, instead of answering. "Almost too big for that pond."

"Sarah."

"I used to think Marcus was afraid of deep water," she continued, ignoring him. "He refused to go swimming on our company retreats. Said he hated not being able to see the bottom. But then I found these old photos of him as a kid — he was a competitive swimmer. Had all these medals."

She paused, her fingers tracing the severed cable's plastic casing.

"Somewhere along the way, he decided it was safer to stay in the shallow end. Where you can touch bottom. Where you can see everything coming."

David was quiet for a long moment. Then: "Is that what you're doing? Staying in the shallow end?"

Sarah looked at the severed cable, the disconnected endpoint, the migration she'd been putting off for weeks because Marcus had written the original script and she couldn't bear to overwrite his work.

"I think," she said, "I think it's time I learned to swim in the deep end again."

The fish would be fine without her. Marcus would have wanted that. She stood up, pressed enter on the terminal, and watched the migration complete — one connection closing, another opening, the way everything does eventually.