The Goldfish Bowl

The goldfish has been swimming in tight circles for three years. I know because I bought him the day after Marcus moved out, a living replacement for the husband who'd left me hollowed out and reeling. That same day, I bought my first iPhone - Marcus's parting gift had been his old Android, a deliberate technological sabotage meant to keep me tethered to his ecosystem.

Now the fish circles his bowl like I've been circling my own grief, both of us trapped in transparent prisons we've outgrown.

My phone buzzes. Sarah, my oldest friend, the only person who still calls instead of texting. I ignore it. I've been ghosting her for weeks, sliding deeper into whatever this is - this automatic existence where I shower and work and sleep and breathe without actually living. Some days I feel like a zombie, shuffling through routines I no longer feel, performing the motions of a life I no longer want.

The cat presses against my leg, insistent and warm. I found him behind the dumpster during last winter's first snow, matted and starving. He'd been someone's pet once - you could tell by the way he'd headbutt your hand, demanding affection like he was entitled to it. Now he sleeps at the foot of my bed, the only living thing that witnesses the slow disintegration of whatever I've become.

"You're feeding him too much," Sarah had said during her last visit, watching me shake fish food into the bowl with ceremonial precision. "He's going to kill himself eating like that."

"He's fine," I'd snapped. "He's happy."

"He's swimming in circles because he's forgotten there's anything else," she said, and I'd wanted to slap her. "Like someone else I know."

The phone buzzes again. This time I look. Sarah's text: "Marcus got married. Vegas. Last weekend."

The cat meows, sharp and demanding. I look at the goldfish, still circling his prison, and then down at my own hands, clutching this glowing rectangle that's supposed to connect me to everything but actually connects me to nothing at all.

Three years of circling.

I drop the phone on the counter - face down, screen dark - and for the first time since Marcus left, I don't pick it back up.