The Goldfish in the Storm

Maya's phone was at 4%—again. She'd forgotten her charging cable somewhere between the funnel cake stand and the Tilt-A-Whirl, and now her iPhone was basically a paperweight. Meanwhile, her friends were already posting stories of the summer carnival, faces glowing with filters she couldn't access.

"Guys, my phone's dead," she said, holding up the dark screen like evidence of a crime.

"Just live in the moment, Maya," Chloe said, not looking up from hers. "It's aesthetic."

Maya clutched the plastic bag containing her prize—a goldfish she'd won by tossing a ping-pong ball into a bowl. The fish, which she'd named Glitter, swam obliviously. This was stupid. Who carries a fish around a carnival?

Then the sky cracked open.

Not rain—lightning. A jagged spear of it struck the parking lot, and suddenly the carnival lights flickered and died. The power outage plunged everything into chaos. People scattered. Maya ducked under the snack shack awning, pressing herself against the wall.

"Room for one more?"

A guy stumbled in, shaking rain from his hair. He was wearing a soaked half-torn bear mascot head, the costume sagging around his waist. It was the guy from the photo booth—the one who'd been trapped inside that bear suit all evening taking pictures with screaming children.

"Great shift, right?" the bear guy said, pulling off the sweaty headpiece. Underneath, he had messy hair and the kind of smile that looked like it didn't happen enough. "I'm Liam."

"Maya. This is Glitter." She held up the fish bag.

He laughed—a real laugh, not the polite kind she was used to. "You named it Glitter?"

"It was either that or Winner."

They sat there for twenty minutes while the storm raged, her iPhone dead in her pocket, no filters, no stories, no performance. Just the rain, the fish swimming in its bag, and this guy who smelled like fake fur and honesty.

"You know," Liam said, watching lightning paint the sky purple, "I think this is the most real conversation I've had all summer."

"Yeah," Maya said, and realized she meant it. "Me too."

When the power returned and the carnival lights blazed back to life, her phone stayed in her pocket. She found her cable later in her friend's bag, but she didn't need it right away. Some things were worth being present for.