Cable to Nowhere

The last job of the day was always the worst kind. Elena pulled her van into the driveway of a suburban colonial that looked like every other house on the street—skeleton Christmas lights still tangled in the bushes in March, a basketball hoop gathering moss in the driveway. Inside, a woman named Sarah waited with her internet down for three days.

"Thank you for coming so late," Sarah said, opening the door before Elena could knock. She looked like Elena felt—eyes bloodshot, hair pulled back in a messy bun, wearing sweatpants that had seen better days. "I've been working from my phone since Tuesday. I feel like I'm losing my mind."

Elena followed her to the home office, where a tangle of cables spilled from the wall like electronic entrails. "Let me guess—you tried to fix it yourself?"

"I'm not completely helpless," Sarah said, though she sounded defeated. "I just—I don't know. I've been working so much lately, I can barely think. My boss keeps saying 'we're all in this together' while he posts pictures of his vacation in Cabo."

Elena knelt by the modem, flashlight between her teeth. The cable connection was loose, probably knocked by a vacuum or a pet. Easy fix. But she didn't rush. Outside, rain drummed against the window, and the house felt strangely quiet.

"You know what's funny?" Sarah continued, perching on the edge of her desk. "I used to run every morning before work. Five miles, rain or shine. Now I can barely remember what that felt like—the rhythm of it, the solitude. Now everything is Slack messages and Zoom calls and feeling like a zombie by 3 PM."

Elena tightened the connection. The modem lights flickered to life, blinking in sequence. "There we go."

"That's it?" Sarah laughed, sounding genuinely surprised. "I feel like I should tip you my soul or something."

"Credit card works," Elena said, standing up. Her knees cracked. "But I get it. Sometimes I think about quitting and just... driving west until the road ends."

"Why don't you?"

"Mortgage," Elena said. "And also, I'm good at this. People need their internet. It's how they stay connected to everything else."

Sarah watched her pack up, something unreadable in her expression. "You know, you're the first real person I've talked to in days. Everyone else is just... floating in a box."

"Welcome to the modern condition," Elena said, but her tone was gentler than usual. She handed Sarah the invoice. "You should try running again. Even if it's just around the block."

"Maybe," Sarah said. "Maybe tomorrow."

Elena drove away thinking about the word zombie—how they were just the walking dead, bodies that kept moving without anything left inside. She'd seen that look in the mirror more often lately. She considered stopping at the gym on the way home, lacing up her old shoes, running until her legs burned and her mind finally shut up.

Instead, she drove home, ate leftover takeout on the couch, and fell asleep to the glow of her phone, feeling the cable of her own existence pulling tighter around her throat, invisible and unbreakable, strangling her by inches.