High and Inside

Marcus stood by the **water** cooler, watching the condensation pool on the plastic base like his own stalled life. At thirty-five, he'd mastered the art of appearing functional while quietly dying inside.

"You coming to the game Saturday?" Dave asked, slapping his back. Dave had been Marcus's **friend** since college—the kind of friend who borrowed money and forgot to return it, who crashed on your couch for months and slept with your ex-girlfriend. The kind Marcus couldn't bring himself to cut loose because loneliness was a parasite that had already eaten too much of him.

"**Baseball," Marcus said. "Right."

The Giants were playing. Dave had season tickets near the dugout. Marcus hadn't cared about sports since his father stopped taking him to games at twelve, the year the divorce papers landed like nuclear fallout.

At home, Marcus's girlfriend Lena was wrapped in his **baseball** jersey from college, watching something mindless on **cable**. The телевизор flickered with reality show drama while she pretended not to notice he'd been drinking.

"Dave wants me to go to the game Saturday,"

Lena didn't turn from the screen. "You hate baseball."

"I know."

"So go. Maybe you'll stop feeling like this."

"Like what?"

"Like you're underwater."

He was. Marcus was drowning in everything—student loans that would outlive him, a career path someone else had chosen, a relationship maintained through mutual cowardice. Even the air in their apartment felt heavy, pressurized.

The **cable** box blinked 12:00 AM. They'd never programmed it. Three years together and they couldn't be bothered.

"I'm going for a walk,"

Lena paused the show. "Marcus."

"What?"

"The water. It's been running for an hour."

He'd left the bathroom faucet dripping, a slow, rhythmic torture he found himself doing lately. Tiny self-sabotages.

In the bathroom, he turned off the **water** and stared at himself in the mirror. The stranger staring back looked like someone who'd made all the wrong choices but couldn't remember making them.

**Baseball** had been his father's religion. **Friend** had been Dave's excuse. **Water** was what he felt like he was breathing. And **cable**—that tangled mess of wires behind the television, that expensive monthly subscription to numbness—**cable** was the only thing holding the apartment together.

Marcus turned the faucet back on and watched the **water** spiral down the drain, carrying nothing away at all.