Cable to Nowhere

The cable had been severed for three weeks when Marcus finally called someone about it. Forty-two years old, newly single, and suddenly confronted with the quiet that filled his apartment when the television wasn't humming to fill the silence.

He found himself at the community pool instead, swimming laps at odd hours when the water was empty and the lights flickered with that electric buzz that reminded him of his father— lineman for the utility company, always coming home with the smell of burned wire on his hands.

"You bear a striking resemblance to someone," said the woman in the lane beside him, surfacing from the water like something ancient and knowing. She was maybe sixty, with skin that had seen too much sun and eyes that held that sphinx-like quality of knowing everything and nothing simultaneously.

Marcus treaded water, suddenly aware of his own nakedness despite the swimsuit. "Who?"

"Someone who's running away from something."

She extended a hand— palm lined with deep creases, the lifeline fractured by old scars. "I read palms in exchange for swimming lessons. Fair trade?"

He almost laughed. Instead, he found himself sitting beside her on the pool deck at midnight, her fingers tracing the lines in his hand while the maintenance crew worked on the cable box nearby, sparks showering down like dying stars.

"You've got a break here," she said, pressing into the mound below his thumb. "Something that disconnected. But see here?" Her touch was lighter now, barely grazing the skin. "It's knitting itself back together. Slow, but it's happening."

Marcus looked at his hand, really looked at it, and for the first time in months, he didn't feel like something broken that needed fixing. He felt like something in progress.

"The cable will be back tomorrow," she said, standing up and gathering her towel. "Maybe you don't need it anymore."

He watched her walk away, and for the first time since his marriage ended, the silence didn't feel like something to be afraid of. It felt like water— something he could float in, instead of drown.