Cable Uprising

Marcus pressed his palm against the cold glass of the 42nd floor window, watching the city below pulse with evening traffic. At fifty-five, he'd expected to feel differently about success—more settled, less like he was waiting for the other shoe to drop.

The vitamin supplements sat in his desk drawer, untouched for three weeks. His doctor had warned him about stress, about the pressure of managing the regional cable infrastructure upgrade. Three hundred million dollars allocated, and somehow it still felt like they were patching holes in a sinking ship.

"You coming to the game?" Cheryl called from the doorway. She held two tickets—company box seats, baseball, something about networking with investors. She'd been trying to save their marriage through carefully scheduled events since Christmas.

"Can't," Marcus said, not turning from the window. "The upstate node's failing again."

"It's always something." She stepped closer, her perfume familiar and distant. "The cat's waiting at home, Marcus. She hasn't seen you in three days."

The cat was hers, really. A parting gift from her last attempt to leave him. Marcus had stayed late at the office that time too, buried beneath server failures and emergency conference calls.

"Tomorrow," he promised.

He heard her sigh, the rustle of tickets being set on his desk. "Tomorrow what? You'll come home? Or you'll fix the cable?"

The question hung between them, heavier than the silence that followed. Outside, the city lights flickered—powered by the very infrastructure he couldn't quite manage, just like everything else in his life.

"Both," he said finally. But Cheryl was already gone.