The Goldfish at the End of the World

The vitamin D sat on her tongue like a small white promise she kept breaking. Maria swallowed it without water, a ritual she'd performed every morning since Arthur died—supplements for a life she no longer recognized.

On the kitchen counter, the goldfish floated near the surface, its orange scales dull in the morning light. She'd bought it on impulse three weeks ago, something alive in her apartment that wasn't a memory. Now it was dying too.

"You're becoming a zombie," her sister had said during their last phone call, accusing. "You don't call. You don't come over. You're just... gone."

Maria had nodded at the phone, even though Sarah couldn't see her. What her sister called zombie-like, Maria recognized as something else: the quiet that comes when everything that could hurt you already has.

At work, she moved through the office like a ghost in fluorescent lighting. Her boss Marcus stopped by her cubicle, palm resting on her desk as he leaned in too close. "You okay, Maria? You seem... distant lately."

She almost told him everything. Almost said: My husband died eight months ago. I'm taking vitamins for a body that feels hollow. My goldfish is dying and I can't even cry about it. Instead she nodded. "Just tired."

That evening, she found the goldfish motionless at the bottom of its bowl. No floating, no final gasp—just stopped. Like Arthur, in a way. No warning. One minute present, the next simply gone.

She flushed it without ceremony, watched the tiny orange form swirl away into pipes that led to places she'd never see. Then she sat on her bathroom floor and counted the vitamin bottles lined up on the counter: D, B12, iron, magnesium, omega-3. A pharmacy against despair.

The fluorescent light caught her palm as she reached for the faucet. The lines there—life, heart, head—seemed shallower somehow, as if grief had worn them smooth. She pressed her hand flat against the cold tile, feeling the pulse in her wrist. Still there. Still beating. Still becoming.

Maria stood, washed her face, and lined up tomorrow's vitamins. Some things you kept doing not because they mattered, but because they were the shape of being alive.