The Goldfish Remember

The cable guy found me on the floor, surrounded by three days of delivery boxes and a profound disinterest in rising. He stepped over a growing collection of remotes—none of them actually working—to peer at the tangle of cords behind the television.

"You're paying for gigabit but this cable's been fraying for months," he said, and the genuine concern in his voice almost broke me.

I hadn't cared about the internet since Sarah left. Hadn't cared about much of anything, really. I'd been moving through my life like a zombie—present but not alive, consuming without tasting, working without producing, sleeping without dreaming. The apartment had become a museum of our shared life, each artifact a sharp reminder of what I'd lost.

"Your dog's staring at me," the cable guy said.

Barnaby. Sarah's dog, technically, though she'd left him behind with a muttered can't about her new apartment's no-pet policy. He'd been staring at the empty spot on the couch where she used to read, waiting for someone who wasn't coming back.

"He's not my dog," I said.

The cable guy's radio crackled. He finished quickly, leaving me with faster internet and nothing to use it for. I stood up for the first time in hours, joints popping, and wandered into the kitchen. The goldfish—I'd won them at a carnival three years ago, drunk on cheap beer and new love—swam in slow circles, oblivious to the entropy around them. The myth is that they have three-second memories, but I'd read somewhere they can remember things for months. Sarah had found that fact devastatingly romantic—fish, carrying the weight of recognition through their tiny, watery lives.

Barnaby padded into the kitchen and nosed my hand. I scratched behind his ears, feeling the steady rhythm of his heart against my palm. On the counter lay Sarah's hat, a wool thing she'd bought in Scotland, still smelling faintly of rain and lavender perfume. I hadn't been able to move it. Hadn't been able to move anything.

Until now.

I picked up the hat. The goldfish continued their endless circling. The cable guy had fixed the connection, but I realized I was the one who'd been disconnected all along—from my life, from my dog, from the possibility that some things don't last, and that's not a failure. That's just how it goes.

I put on Sarah's hat. It didn't fit right. I took it off and placed it in the donation box. Barnaby wagged his tail—once, tentatively. I fed the fish.

The cable guy had said something about gigabit speeds. Maybe it was time to actually use them.