The Goldfish at the End of the Tunnel

The loose cable above my desk has been dangling for six months. Every morning, I stare at it while my vitamins dissolve in lukewarm water—a rainbow of promises I make to a body that's already beginning to betray me. At 43, I've become the kind of man who buys supplements instead of making changes.

I wasn't always this person. Once, I was running toward something—a promotion, a mortgage, a future that looked like the brochure. Now I'm running in place, sweating on a treadmill at 5 AM while Sarah sleeps in our separate bedrooms, her back always turned.

"We're just roommates who occasionally share groceries," she said last night, her voice flat as she packed a lunchbox for a job she hates. We'd spent our anniversary in silence, both of us scrolling through phones, our hands inches apart on the couch but unable to bridge the gap.

The office goldfish died yesterday. Its name was Steve, a joke from a temp who didn't last a week. I found him floating at the top of his tank during my lunch break, his orange scales dull in the fluorescent light. Someone had fed him too much, or too little. It's hard to know which is worse.

I should flush him. Instead, I'm watching him bob against the glass, wondering if he knew he was in a tank the whole time. If he ever looked through the glass at something beyond and thought: there must be more than this.

"You still wearing that hat?" Sarah asked this morning, noticing my grandfather's fedora on the hook by the door. I put it on sometimes, on weekends, pretending to be the kind of man who visits jazz clubs and carries secrets instead of cholesterol medication.

"It's cold out," I said, which wasn't true.

The cable swings whenever someone walks past. I keep meaning to report it, but it's the only thing in this office that's honest about being held together by nothing.

Tomorrow, I'll flush Steve. Tomorrow, I'll tell Sarah I want to try again. Tomorrow, I'll report the cable. Tomorrow, I'll stop running and actually move.

The vitamins taste like chalk and surrender. Down the hatch, down the hatch, into the body of a man who once thought he'd be someone else by now.