The Things We Keep Alive

The cable modem blinked its single green eye in the darkness, a tiny heartbeat of connectivity in a room that had forgotten how to pulse. Elena sat cross-legged on the floor, watching the goldfish—Christopher had named him Kafka, because the joke was that they were both trapped in transparent containers—swim his endless circles in the bowl on the windowsill.

"He's not eating," she said, not turning around. She could hear Richard behind her, the rustle of his suit jacket as he checked his phone for what had to be the twentieth time in an hour.

"Goldfish don't live that long anyway," Richard said. His voice had that careful quality, like he was walking on a floor that might collapse. "Maybe he's just old."

"He's three. That's not old for a fish. He's depressed."

She watched Kafka float near the surface, his orange scales catching the streetlight from outside. They'd bought him the week after Richard's promotion, the week they'd stopped having sex because Elena had found the texts on his work computer—not explicit, but careful. Measured. The way he talked to her now.

A storm had been building all evening, the kind that presses down on your chest. When the lightning finally flashed, it illuminated everything in stark relief: the dust on the bookshelf, the water spots on the ceiling where the upstairs neighbor's pipe had leaked for three months, Richard's tired face as he finally looked up from his phone.

"The cable's out," he said, unnecessarily.

"I know."

"Elena."

She stood up and walked to the fish bowl. The water was cloudier than she'd realized, swirling with tiny particulates of food and waste. Kafka wasn't swimming anymore; he was hovering near the bottom, his gills moving in frantic shallow pulses.

"Do you remember," she said quietly, "when you told me you loved how I could never stay underwater? That I always had to come up for air?"

"That was three years ago."

"I'm drowning, Richard."

The lightning flashed again, and in that brief illumination, she saw him flinch. Kafka gave one last violent shudder and went still. The silence stretched between them, thick and suffocating.

"I'll change his water," Richard said finally, not meeting her eyes. "In the morning."

"In the morning," Elena agreed, and watched her husband keep swimming in circles.