The Goldfish Won

The cable guy arrived ten minutes after Marcos left, the irony timing itself like a bad joke. Sarah stood in their—her—living room surrounded by half-empty boxes, watching a stranger disconnect the service they'd argued about paying for three months running.

'You okay, ma'am?' the technician asked, cable spilling from his hands like entrails.

She almost laughed. Marcos had taken the dog—that was non-negotiable. Buster was his emotionally, anyway—a neurotic rescue with abandonment issues that made him the perfect companion for a man who couldn't commit to dinner plans, let alone a future. Sarah had insisted on keeping the goldfish, a transparent pet named Caractacus she'd won at a carnival two years into their five-year relationship. It floated near the surface now, mouth opening and closing in that perpetually surprised O, watching her pack.

Her iPhone buzzed on the counter. Marcos's name. Again.

She'd changed her relationship status to single yesterday and promptly received seventeen texts from people she hadn't spoken to since college, plus one from her mother asking if she was 'still holding onto that biological clock.' Only Marcos had actually called.

'Marcos, I can't do this right now,' she'd said earlier.

'I just need to know if you're keeping the Netflix password,' he'd replied, and something about that—about how thoroughly he'd reduced their shared life to logistics—had made her sob into her hands until Buster's replacement, her sister's labrador, licked her face through the open front door.

The cable guy was looking at her expectantly. She signed the tablet. The service terminated at midnight.

Her iPhone lit up again. Not Marcos this time. A notification: 'Your free trial of premium meditation ends tomorrow. Subscribe now to find inner peace.'

Sarah stood in her half-empty living room, her thumb hovering over the screen. Behind her, Caractacus the goldfish swam endless circles in his bowl, blissfully unaware that the world had ended. She watched him for a long moment, that improbable gold survivor of wars she'd lost before they'd begun, and pressed delete.

The meditation app vanished. The cable went dark. She sat on the floor with her back to the wall and watched the fish swim, and for the first time in five years, didn't check her phone to see if anyone was watching her do it.