Cables and Cunning

The fox appeared at dawn, padding through the construction site where I'd spent the night installing fiber optic cable. Its coat burned like autumn leaves against the grey concrete—a flash of wild, indifferent beauty in a world of wires and quarterly projections.

I hadn't slept. Elena's text still glowed on my phone: *I can't do this anymore. Not like this.* Three years of friendship, blurred edges, nights that promised something more, all severed by eleven words on a screen.

"Hey, you're here early," called Mark, my supervisor, climbing out of his truck. Safety orange vest, coffee in hand, perpetually cheerful. "Bull of a job yesterday, huh? Those corporate clients really rode us hard."

I watched the fox vanish between shipping containers. "Something like that."

The cable I'd installed would carry thousands of conversations, confessions, breakups. Messages like Elena's, traveling at light speed through glass and darkness, connecting people who would eventually disconnect anyway. What was the point?

"You okay?" Mark asked, and I realized I'd been staring at where the fox disappeared.

"Yeah. Just tired."

He clapped my shoulder. "Go home. Sleep. We've got the final termination tomorrow."

I drove past Elena's building on the way home. Her orange curtains were drawn—she'd always hated that color, said it reminded her of a childhood she couldn't quite remember. I thought about knocking. About telling her that friendship wasn't supposed to feel like this, like holding your breath underwater, waiting.

In my apartment, I peeled an orange. The scent hit me—sharp, bright, impossible. Like memory made tangible. Like the fox, wild and fleeting. Like whatever this was between friendship and something else that we'd been too cowardly to name.

The phone buzzed. Not Elena.

*Fox spotted near your neighborhood,* read the neighborhood alert. *Residents advised to keep distance. They're more scared of you than you are of them.*

I laughed, bitter and sudden. The fox was the only one brave enough to show its face.