Cable to Nowhere

Marcus parked his van on the gravel driveway, the company logo peeling at the edges. Another installation, another house he'd enter and leave like a ghost. He was thirty-eight and had never figured out what he was supposed to be doing with his life, only that it involved coaxial cable and customer signatures.

The client met him at the door—a man in his sixties with shoulders like a **bull** who'd spent decades shrugging off life's inconveniences. "Just make it work," the man grunted, walking away.

Marcus threaded cables through walls that had witnessed three generations. In the living room, a shadow box held faded **baseball** cards and a little league trophy from 1978. He wondered what happened to the boy who'd won it—whether he'd grown up to be the bull of a man currently watching from the kitchen doorway, or whether he'd left this house entirely.

A **cat** watched him from atop the refrigerator, yellow eyes tracking Marcus's hands as he connected the lines. "She doesn't like strangers," the man said, softer now. "My wife's. She died last year."

"I'm sorry," Marcus said, and meant it. The words hung between them, heavier than the silence.

The man poured two fingers of whiskey. "You watch baseball?"

"Sometimes."

"My boy played. College scholarship, then the minors. Thought he was going somewhere." The man's voice cracked. "Then somewhere happened, and it wasn't where he expected. Works in data entry now. Doesn't call."

Marcus finished tightening the connections. The cable would carry hundreds of channels into this house—sports, news, endless entertainment—but nothing that would fix what was broken.

"There," Marcus said. "All set."

The man nodded, eyes glistening. "Thanks for listening."

Outside, Marcus sat in his van for five minutes before starting the engine. He thought about calling his own father, about baseball games they'd never watched together, about all the things unsaid between people who were supposed to love each other. Instead, he drove to the next job, threading cables through houses full of strangers, connecting everything to everything else, while somehow still feeling alone.