Cable Management

Marcus knelt beneath the desk, his knees popping in protest. The vitamin regimen his doctor had prescribed sat in his system like a promise he kept forgetting to honor—D3 for the gray Seattle winter, B-complex for the stress that had carved permanent hollows beneath his eyes. At forty-two, his body had become a catalog of small betrayals.

Behind him, the server room hummed with the indifferent warmth of machines. His fingers worked through the tangled mess of ethernet cable, each plastic snake labeled with fading Sharpie. This was his life now: cable management for a software company that had fired half its staff but kept growing, like a tumor that learned to feed itself.

"Your father called," Sarah said from the doorway. She didn't turn on the light. "He wants to know if you're coming to the game tomorrow."

Marcus's thumb found the frayed end of a Cat6 cable. His father's baseball stories had been the soundtrack of his childhood—tales of the minor leagues, the almost-fame, the injury that had sidelined him before he could become someone Marcus could brag about. Now the old man sat in assisted care, watching Mariners games with the same fierce intensity he once brought to the mound.

"I'm working late again."

"You're always working late." Sarah's voice carried that particular exhaustion he'd come to dread—the kind that didn't argue anymore. "Marcus, you've been running from everything since your mother died. The job, me, him. How long do you think you can keep this up?"

He'd started running after the funeral—night runs through the neighborhood, past dark windows and sleeping dogs. The rhythm of his breath, the ache in his lungs, the simple animal certainty of forward motion. It was the only time he felt anything close to peace.

"Just one more year," he said, though they both knew it was a lie. "Just until I—"

"Until what? Until you're ready?" She stepped closer, and he saw she was holding her packed bag. "Some cables are meant to be cut, Marcus. Not everything can be managed."

The Ethernet cable snapped in his hands.