Cable of Strangers

The orange sat on the counter between us like a small, sun-ripened accusation. Its bright skin seemed to glow in the fluorescent kitchen light, a reminder of color in a world that had gone gray.

"You're staring at it again," Mark said, not looking up from his phone. His voice had that flat quality I'd come to recognize—the sound of someone performing the role of husband while checking mentally for escape routes.

"I'm thinking about Barcelona," I said. "When we shared that orange on the balcony. You peeled it for me."

That was before we became zombies—before the slow decay of marriage reduced us to walking dead, shuffling through routines, pretending there was still something alive between us. We moved through the house like ghosts haunting our own life, each of us waiting for the other to admit what we'd both known for months.

The cable box blinked in the living room, its blue light a steady heartbeat in our tomb of a home. We used to have friends—dinners, laughter, the warmth of connection. Now we watched Netflix in separate rooms, the cable our only companion, its glowing cord stretching between us like an umbilical cord that had stopped delivering anything nourishing years ago.

"I remember Barcelona," Mark said softly, finally meeting my eyes. For a moment, I saw something flicker behind his weary expression—grief, or maybe just recognition of everything we'd killed between us. "We were happy then."

"And now we're just... here."

"Yeah." He stood up, the chair scraping against the floor like a scream. "Now we're just here."

The orange remained on the counter, its skin dimpling in the dry air, a small dying sun that would never set. Somewhere in the house, a phone buzzed—maybe a friend, maybe work, maybe nothing at all. Neither of us moved to answer.

"I think," I said, reaching for the fruit, "it's time to peel this."

"Yeah," Mark said, and for the first time in months, there was something real in his voice. "I think so too."

We shared that final orange in silence, the juice sticky on our fingers, and it tasted like the beginning of an end we'd both been waiting for.