The group chat went quiet three weeks ago. We used to joke about the night shifts, the smell of fish meal, the way my wife still packed my lunch after forty-one years.
The night-shift kid, Denny, started it. He was always sending memes at 3 a.m. from the sorting room. Now he’s gone—transferred to a hatchery upstate.
I still check the chat every morning with my coffee. The last message is a photo I took of a snow shovel I found in the back of my rented garage.
I’d never seen a snow shovel in a beach town before. The previous tenant was a fisherman who moved inland. He left it behind, like a piece of a life I don’t understand.
I posted it with a caption: "Found this in my garage. Guess I'm ready for anything." Nobody replied. Not even a laugh react.
I think about how the off-season empties this town the same way the chat emptied. The tourists leave, the night-shift kid leaves, and eventually you’re just counting fish in the dark.
My wife says I talk to the salmon more than I talk to her. She’s not wrong. But at least the salmon don’t go quiet—they just swim in circles, waiting for me to count them again.