Cable to Nowhere

Maria's fingers shook as she coiled the coaxial cable, the black snake slippery against her palms. Another apartment, another installation, another temporary tether connecting strangers to worlds that weren't their own. Forty-two years old and still climbing other people's walls, drilling holes she'd have to patch later, crawling through attics thick with insulation and memories.

"You have such beautiful hair," the elderly woman had said earlier, watching Maria work. Maria had touched the gray threading through her dark ponytail without responding. Her ex-husband had loved her hair. Had said it was the first thing he noticed about her in that crowded bar twenty years ago. Now it was just hair, falling out in the shower, collecting in the drain like dead leaves.

The living room hummed with the fluorescent glow of a fish tank. A single goldfish hung suspended in the middle of the water, mouth opening and closing in silent wonder. Maria found herself staring at it, mesmerized by its isolation. How long could something survive in such artificial stillness?

"His name was Harold," the woman said, appearing beside her. "My husband. He's been gone three years. The goldfish—I mean, not Harold. Though sometimes I mix them up in my head. They both had that same glassy expression toward the end."

Maria nodded. She didn't do conversation well. Not since David left, taking their dog—a neurotic beagle named Buster—and half the furniture. She'd kept the hat collection though. David had hated her hats. Said she used them to hide, to avoid really being seen with him. Now they sat on hooks by the door, a rainbow of felt and straw, each one a different version of herself she could slip on depending on who she needed to be that day.

"The cable's ready," Maria said instead. "You've got three hundred channels. Endless distraction."

"Oh, I won't watch it," the woman said, settling into her armchair. "I just like knowing it's there. Like having a telephone you never answer. It's not about the talking. It's about the possibility that someone might reach out."

Maria thought of her phone, silent in her pocket. David's number still there. The possibility.

Outside, the neighborhood dog barked at something invisible in the darkness. Maria gathered her tools. "That'll be eighty-five dollars."

"Keep it," the woman said, already turning toward the fish tank. "And take this." She pressed a knit cap into Maria's hands. "Harold's. He never wore it. Said it made him look ridiculous. I think you could pull it off."

Maria walked to her van, the cable still warm from the wall, the hat in her hand. She didn't put it on. But she didn't throw it away either. Some connections, she was learning, didn't need to be plugged in to work. They just needed to exist—ghost signals in the static, waiting for someone to tune in and listen.