Disconnected

The **cable** frayed at the exact spot where David's thumb rested most often—another small death in a year of them. He should have replaced it months ago, like he should have replaced so many things: the smoke detector batteries, his contact lenses, his optimism.

At 47, running had become less about fitness and more about the temporary suspension of thought. Each morning, David laced his shoes and fled his apartment at 5 AM, before the **iPhone** could summon him into the news cycle, before the accumulated weight of his half-empty life could press down on his chest. His knees clicked now—a metronome counting down something he couldn't name.

The **hat** had been his grandfather's, a fedora that smelled of old tobacco and terminal decline. David wore it to funerals, weddings, court dates. It sat on his kitchen table now, beside the amber prescription bottle. The **vitamin** D supplements were supposed to help with seasonal depression, or maybe bone density, or possibly the general feeling that he was dissolving from the inside out. The label promised wellness. The pharmacy promised renewal. His body promised only entropy.

"You don't have to be happy," she'd said, the last time they spoke. "But you do have to be present."

He wasn't sure where she'd gone. Not physically—Sarah was three states away, remarried, successful, whole. But the version of her that lived in his memory had dissolved too, replaced by a narrative he'd constructed and reconstructed until it bore no resemblance to anything that had actually happened between them.

The running helped sometimes. Other times it just emphasized how much ground he covered without moving forward at all.

David stood at the window, watching the cable swing in the wind outside. He could replace it. He could call Sarah—not the one who'd left, but the version in his head who might still exist somewhere. He could go outside.

Instead, he swallowed the vitamin with the last sip of cold coffee, put on his grandfather's hat, and waited for something to happen that he hadn't already decided would happen. The iPhone remained silent on the counter. The morning arrived anyway.