The Last Goldfish Watcher

The vitamin regimen was hers — rows of amber bottles lined up on the bathroom counter like tiny soldiers. D3 for mood, Omega-3 for heart, B-complex for the energy she always insisted we both needed. Now, three months after she left, I still take them every morning. Not because I believe they work. Because throwing them away would mean admitting she's never coming back.

The goldfish — a carnival prize from our first date, survived eight years in a murky bowl on her nightstand — floats motionless near the surface. I haven't fed it in two weeks. Part negligence, part cruel experiment. How long can something live on pure spite?

I should change the water. I should flush it. Instead, I watch its g pulse: one, two, one, two. A tiny metronome counting down something I can't name.

At work, the coaxial cable snakes through the ceiling tiles like a promise I keep meaning to keep. "I'll fix the conference room display," I told Sandra, my boss who looks at me with eyes that say I see you drowning, man. But I don't fix it. I let the static hum during client calls, let pixels fracture across quarterly projections. Nobody complains. They think it's technical difficulty. They don't know it's just me.

The sphinx sticker on my laptop — peeled from a museum gift shop bag during that weekend in Chicago where we first said I love you — is curling at the edges. Riddle me this, it seems to whisper. What loses everything but keeps going anyway?

Friday night, I carry the fishbowl to the balcony. Below, the city spreads like glitter spilled on black velvet. Traffic pulses along the freeway, cables strung between poles carrying voices that matter more than mine.

I tap the glass. The fish doesn't move.

"You win," I tell it.

Inside, I arrange the vitamin bottles in a perfect line. Tomorrow I'll cancel the cable. Maybe I'll start fresh. Maybe I'll call her. Maybe the fish will start swimming again.

The sky behind me is vast and indifferent, full of ancient riddles I'll never solve, riddles that don't care about my net worth or my 401k or the woman who packed her things in cardboard boxes and left one Tuesday morning without saying goodbye.

I watch the water until it's too dark to see anything at all.