Cable Management for the Soul

The coaxial cable had been fraying for months, its silver innards exposed like a nerve ending. Maya lay on her back under the desk, surrounded by a tangle of wires that felt more like her actual life than the one she lived above floor level. Forty-two years old and she was still playing hide-and-seek with connectivity issues in a apartment she couldn't afford after David left.

Her phone buzzed. Another Teams message from Gary, her boss, whose face had recently taken on the quality of a particularly animated potato. "Pyramid your priorities, Maya. The Q3 deliverables need to cascade down appropriately."

Maya closed her eyes. The corporate pyramid scheme—where those at the top sat on the backs of everyone below, while she was somewhere near the foundation, holding up weight that wasn't hers to carry. She'd become a zombie in this job, showing up, going through motions, her soul quietly exiting stage left somewhere around year three. The irony wasn't lost on her: she'd always been afraid of dying without really living, and here she was, the walking dead in a beige cardigan.

Her stomach growled. Dinner last night had been a sad affair—spinach and feta wrapped in a tortilla, eaten standing over the sink while watching a documentary about people who had actually figured out how to be happy. She'd tried to pretend it was a choice, this solitary meal, this empty apartment. Spinach was supposed to be good for you. Iron. Strength. What a lie.

The cable finally clicked into place. The TV flickered to life—a reality show where people competed for love while she couldn't even maintain a connection that had been severed by email.

Maya crawled out from under the desk, dust bunnies clinging to her sleeves. She looked around the apartment, really looked at it, for what felt like the first time in months. The zombie apocalypse had already happened, and it was happening in apartments and cubicles everywhere, one surrender at a time.

She stood up, walked to the kitchen, and threw the remaining spinach in the trash. Then she called her sister. It was time to stop pyramid-ing her priorities and start building something real.