What We Feed

The goldfish died three months ago, but neither of us had mentioned it until tonight.

Marcus stood by the empty bowl, phone in hand, screen illuminating his face in the kitchen's half-light. He'd been married to that iPhone longer than he'd been married to me. Five years of dinners interrupted by its glow, of conversations postponed until "after this email," of intimacy mediated through pixels.

"You can replace the fish," I said, not moving from the doorway.

"It's not about the fish." He finally looked up. "I fed it every morning. I was the only one who remembered."

"I remembered."

"Then why didn't you?"

Outside, something moved in the garden—the fox that had taken to visiting at dusk, sleek and improbable in our suburban yard. I'd watched it through the window while Marcus scrolled through news I couldn't make him discuss.

The cable bill lay unpaid on the counter. We kept the service out of habit, watching different shows on different tablets, sharing a house but not a life. We'd become experts at being alone together.

"Remember Pamplona?" Marcus asked suddenly. "When we ran with the bulls?"

"You ran. I watched from a balcony."

"I was so alive then. I thought I'd always feel like that."

His iPhone chimed—work email, naturally. He thumbed it open reflexively, eyes already glazing over, and I saw it: we had become like that goldfish, swimming in circles, forgetting what lay beyond our bowl. The fox outside knew more about freedom than we did.

"Marcus," I said, but he didn't hear. He was already elsewhere, tethered to a job that didn't love him back by a cable of obligation, while I stood in our kitchen, twenty-eight years old and already wondering if this was all there was.

The fox slipped away into the night. In the morning, I'd be gone too.