Cable to Nowhere

Marcus hadn't slept properly in three weeks. He moved through the office like a zombie, his eyes glazed over from endless spreadsheets and the fluorescent hum that seemed to vibrate in his bones. At thirty-four, he was already balding — his hair thinning at the temples, each lost strand another casualty of the bull market crash that had taken his savings and his will to live simultaneously.

The elevator mirrored him back: hollowed out, pale, gripping his coffee cup until his palm sweated through the cardboard. Sarah had left him two months ago. "You're not really here," she'd said, and she'd been right. He'd been nodding while she spoke about feeling lonely, his mind already cataloging tomorrow's meetings.

Now, sitting in his apartment with the cable coiled around his ankles like a dead snake, he finally understood. He could call her. The phone was right there. But his fingers wouldn't move. Some part of him had already accepted that this half-life was all he deserved — the safety of routines that killed him slowly, the comfort of being someone else's number.

He ran his hand over his head, feeling the stubble, the pathetic remnant of who he used to be. Tomorrow he'd wake up and do it again. The zombie lived, after all. The zombie always did.