The Last Goldfish

The goldfish had been dead for three days before Marcus noticed.

Sarah had been flushing them one by one—the orange ones first, then the speckled—until only the largest remained, floating near the surface of the bowl on Marcus's nightstand. She'd stopped caring about their pets months ago, around the same time she'd stopped caring about much of anything.

"You're supposed to feed them," Marcus said, not looking up from his phone. The blue light illuminated his face in the dark bedroom, the charging cable snaking across the sheets like a tether he couldn't bear to disconnect. Work emails. Always work emails, even at eleven on a Friday.

"I forgot," Sarah said, which wasn't true. She hadn't forgotten. She just hadn't cared.

She walked to the bathroom and stared at herself in the mirror. A grey hair shimmered at her temple, another one this month. She was thirty-four. At this rate, she'd be entirely silver by forty. Marcus would notice eventually, or maybe he wouldn't. Maybe he'd be too busy answering emails at their anniversary dinner, too busy scrolling through messages during her father's funeral to notice that his wife was disappearing strand by strand.

The fish bowl sat between them on the nightstand, a glass barrier separating their pillows. The last goldfish—named Picasso, because Marcus had declared it artistic when drunk—rose to the surface, mouth opening and closing in silent accusation.

"Remember when we bought them?" Marcus asked suddenly. His thumb hovered over his screen. "That street fair in Williamsburg?"

"I remember," Sarah said. She remembered the humidity, the sticky heat of July, the way Marcus had kissed her behind a booth selling vintage photographs. They'd been so alive then, so certain of everything. Now they were two people sharing a bed, floating in the same bowl but unable to breathe the same air.

"We should get more," Marcus said. "When these die. Start over."

Sarah touched the grey hair at her temple, then looked at the fish swimming in its own waste, in water that hadn't been changed in weeks. Something in her chest shifted—something that had been frozen for a long time.

"No," she said. "Some things don't get to start over."

She unplugged his phone from the charging cable. Marcus finally looked up.

"What are you doing?"

"Living," Sarah said, and walked out the door with nothing but the clothes on her back and the sudden, terrifying knowledge that she was still alive underneath all the grey.