What Remains in the Bowl

The papaya sat on the counter, its skin freckled with brown spots like age spots on a lover's hand. I'd bought it two days ago, when I still believed things would be fine. Now it smelled too sweet, cloying in the small kitchen where my friend Jenna had sat just last week, explaining why she needed to borrow money again.

I watched my cat, Milk, bat at the glass bowl on the counter. Inside, the goldfish swam in lazy circles, oblivious. I'd bought it on impulse after Mark left—a living thing that couldn't leave, couldn't disappoint me. Its name was Persistence, which felt like a joke I'd played on myself.

"You're too soft," Jenna had said, eating my expensive cheese, drinking my wine. "That's why he walked all over you." Her kindness had teeth. Later I'd found she'd told half our office about the panic attack I'd had in the bathroom, complete with impressions.

I sliced the papaya open. Its flesh was the color of bruised things. Outside, something moved—a fox, lean and orange as a flame, slipping through the hedge between my yard and the neighbor's. It stopped, watching me through the window with eyes that held no judgment, only calculation. It had eaten something recently. I could see the dried blood on its muzzle.

The fox and I regarded each other. It knew something about survival. It knew that sometimes you eat what you can catch.

"You're right about me," I whispered to the empty kitchen. I fed the papaya to the compost, flushed the goldfish down the toilet where it might find something larger than a bowl. The fox was gone when I looked again, but I left the window open anyway. Some things should be allowed to take what they need.