Cable to Nowhere

The fiber optic cable lay coiled like a dead snake across her apartment floor, a reminder that the internet installer had left three hours ago with a promise to return "maybe tomorrow." Elena sat cross-legged beside it, eating papaya from a halved fruit with a spoon, watching her phone's signal bars fluctuate between one and zero.

"Some network engineer you turned out to be," she muttered to the empty room.

Her ex-boyfriend David's dog—a neurotic terrier mix named Banjo—had been his emotional support animal. David was an emotional support animal. Now both were gone, and the papaya tasted suspiciously like memory.

Outside, the swimming pool of her complex glowed with that artificial blue light that made everything look simultaneously inviting and vaguely radioactive. At 2 AM, the pool was empty, save for the elderly man in 4B who swam laps every night with the grim determination of someone training to escape something.

Elena stood up, stepping over the cable. She'd had enough of waiting—for the internet, for David to come to his senses, for her life to resume feeling like something she recognized.

She grabbed her swimsuit from the dryer and headed down.

The water was shocking, immediate. As she began swimming laps, she thought about how David used to say their relationship was like a cable—so much potential, so much data flowing, but occasionally frayed at the connections. She'd laughed then, charmed by his tech metaphors. Now she wondered if maybe he'd been warning her.

The elderly man in 4B swam in the adjacent lane with efficient strokes. They nodded at each other, two insomniacs seeking the same anesthesia in chlorinated water.

Back in her apartment, the papaya sat on the counter, oxidizing in the too-warm air. The cable was still there. Her phone still had no service. But something in her chest felt different—lighter, maybe. Or maybe just finally, honestly, disconnected.

She ate the rest of the papaya with her fingers, sticky and ungraceful, and stepped over the cable to bed. Tomorrow she'd call about the internet. Tomorrow she'd return David's things he'd left in a box by her door. But tonight, she'd sleep with nothing tethering her to anyone.