The Goldfish in the Storm

The cardboard boxes were stacked like accusations in the center of the living room. Sarah had already taken the television, leaving a coaxial **cable** dangling from the wall like a severed umbilical. I stared at it while the storm built outside, the sky bruising purple and gray through the window I'd been meaning to weatherstrip for three years.

The **goldfish** - hers, originally, though I'd been the one feeding it every morning for seven years - swam in lazy circles in its bowl on the windowsill. She'd forgotten it. She'd forgotten a lot of things lately, including how to look at me without that particular exhaustion in her eyes. The fish, a comet with scales like tarnished pennies, had outlasted our marriage by three days now.

When the first flash of **lightning** fractured the sky, the power died instantly. The fish continued its oblivious orbiting. I found myself **running** through the dark apartment, my feet knowing the furniture's placement even when my mind didn't. I grabbed the flashlight from the junk drawer - the one where we kept rubber bands and expired warranties and all the small debris of a life.

The storm broke then, rain lashing the windows like an accusation. I sat on the floor and watched the goldfish by flashlight beam, thinking about how Sarah used to say the fish was depressed, needed a companion, needed a bigger tank. Some things expand to fill their containers. Some things wither.

Another lightning strike illuminated the room in stroboscopic freeze-frame. In that second of brilliance, I saw myself in the window's reflection - thirty-eight years old, sitting on hardwood floors with a dying flashlight and a forgotten pet, while my ex-wife was probably somewhere new, somewhere without cable she hadn't bothered to disconnect.

The goldfish surfaced, its mouth opening and closing in silent supplication. I stood up, found a clean mason jar, and began planning. Not planning to call her. Not planning to unpack. Just planning to keep something alive, starting now.