The Weight of Small Things

The last box sat half-packed in what used to be our dining room. Three years reduced to cardboard and tape, to objects that suddenly felt foreign in my hands.

I picked up the sphinx figurine from the shelf—a cheap ceramic thing we'd bought in Egypt during that week we pretended everything was fine. You'd made some joke about riddles and silent mysteries, and I'd laughed because I still believed we could solve each other.

The goldfish bowl sat on the counter, murky and neglected. We'd bought them on impulse—two, we'd said, because one would be lonely. The irony hadn't escaped me then, either. Now only one swam in slow circles, its orange flash dim in the gathering dark. I'd forgotten to feed them for days. Some things required more attention than I could give.

My iphone buzzed against the countertop—your third message this hour. I didn't need to read it to know the shape of your regret, the careful way you'd say my name like it was something fragile you'd mishandled. The cable charger lay snaked beside it, our shared lifeline now separated into yours and mine.

The fridge held the worst of it: a bag of spinach gone slimy at the edges, purchased for that dinner we never made. We'd planned to cook together, talk about the future like it was something we still owned. Now it rotted in the crisper drawer alongside everything else we'd let spoil.

I sealed the box with tape that ripped with a sound like tearing skin. The goldfish continued its endless orbit, indifferent to the sudden quiet of the apartment. Some creatures survive in inches of water, learning to breathe the thin air of confined spaces. Others simply drown.

I left the sphinx on the windowsill. Let the next occupants wonder why it watched the door with enigmatic eyes. Some riddles aren't meant to be solved.