The Goldfish on the Counter

The vitamin C bottle sat on the counter where Elena used to keep her jewelry collection. Six months after the funeral, and I still reached for that empty space every morning, my fingers grasping at air. I'd taken to swallowing the vitamins with a kind of religious devotion, as if somehow they could compensate for the hollowed-out cavity in my chest where she used to live.

Work had become a performance. I moved through the office corridors like a zombie—half-alive, eyes glazed, responding to emails and attending meetings while my actual self watched from somewhere distant, behind a plate of glass. My coworkers stopped asking if I was okay. They'd learned that the question only elicited a practiced smile and a mumbled "Fine, just tired."

The only thing that felt real anymore was the goldfish.

Elena had bought him on a whim three years ago, after we saw those cheap carnival booths where you could win a fish in a plastic bag. She'd named him Captain Barnacle because it sounded ridiculous, and she loved saying things that made me laugh until my ribs ached.

Now I watched Captain Barnacle drift through his bowl on the kitchen counter, his orange scales catching the morning light. He circled the same plastic castle again and again, opening and closing his tiny mouth in perpetual surprise. Sometimes I talked to him while I made coffee.

"She would've hated this weather," I'd say. Or "I found that scarf you lost."

He'd just float there, absorbing my words like the room absorbed sound, and I'd feel slightly less alone.

The vitamin bottle emptied last Tuesday. I stood in the supplement aisle at the grocery store, surrounded by promises of better sleep, sharper minds, stronger hearts. The fluorescent lights hummed. A woman next to me compared magnesium labels, her life stretching forward in ordinary, predictable ways.

I left without buying anything.

That night, I sat on the kitchen floor and watched Captain Barnacle navigate his tiny kingdom. He stopped swimming and floated near the glass, looking at me with his perpetually open mouth, and I realized something: he was still here. Still swimming. Still hungry when I sprinkled flakes into his bowl. Still alive in this apartment where everything else felt suspended.

"You're doing it wrong," Elena would say. "You have to eat. You have to sleep. You have to—"

The goldfish flicked his tail and disappeared behind the plastic castle.

I stood up and opened the refrigerator. There were eggs, wilting spinach, a loaf of bread. I'd make an omelet. I'd take a shower tomorrow. I'd call my mother on Sunday.

The vitamins could wait. Captain Barnacle needed feeding.