What Lightning Takes

The papaya sat in the crisper drawer for three weeks after Marcus left—a soft, speckled monument to the vacation we never took. He'd bought it the same day he bought the goldfish, that terrible Tuesday when he decided our seven-year relationship needed 'spicing up.' The fish, a comet-tailed creature the color of dirty sunset, swam in endless circles in its bowl on the windowsill. I'd named it Hypatia, after the philosopher, because she seemed to know something I didn't.

I stood in the kitchen at 2 AM, iPhone glowing in my hand, watching the text message cursor blink. Marcus had moved to Seattle two months ago. He sent photos of Space Needle sunsets and artisanal coffee. I sent silence. The papaya had finally begun to collapse in on itself, sweet decay spreading through its yellow flesh like a bruise.

Hypatia rose to the surface of her bowl, mouth opening and closing in silent observation. I wondered what fish dreamed about—oceans, rivers, other fish? Or just the endless geometry of their own confinement?

The first lightning strike illuminated the kitchen in violent white. I counted—one, two, three—then thunder shook the windows. The storm had been forecast for days, some weather system moving down from Canada, relentless as a memory. Another flash, closer this time. The goldfish didn't flinch.

My iPhone buzzed. Marcus's name appeared on screen, overlaid against the papaya's rotting silhouette. 'I'm coming back,' it read. 'I made a mistake.'

I watched the letters burn into the screen, phosphorescent ghosts. Outside, lightning struck somewhere on the street. The power died instantly, leaving only the phone's glow and the storm outside and the papaya softening in the dark, its sweetness finally,彻底ly, taking over everything.

'I know,' I typed, then deleted. 'I know' had never been enough for us.

The goldfish stirred, a flicker of orange in the sudden dark. I carried her bowl to the back door, opened it to the rain-drenched night. She swam through water transformed by flash after flash of lightning—silver, violet, blinding white—a creature of borrowed light in borrowed water, making her way through whatever world contained her.

I poured her into the garden pond, watched her disappear into deeper darkness. The papaya could wait until morning. The iPhone, I turned off. Some things, I decided, shouldn't be captured. Some things should only be lightning—brief, illuminating, gone.