Salt Water and Copper Wire

The coaxial cable hung from the bedroom wall like a dark umbilical, frayed at the end where Marcus had ripped it from the wall mount three nights ago. Elena stared at it while swallowing her evening vitamin D — the kind her doctor said she needed because she never went outside anymore.

"You're always swimming away from me," Marcus had said, packing his things into cardboard boxes that smelled of dust and endings. "Even when you're right here, you're somewhere else."

He wasn't wrong. Elena had been swimming through her days for years now, gliding through surfaces, never diving deep. The vitamin clicked against her teeth — a small, sharp punctuation to the silence.

That night, she dreamed of the ocean. Not the gentle beaches of childhood memory, but something vast and crushing. She was swimming toward something just beyond her reach, something that glinted like copper wire beneath the waves. The water tasted like salt and old television static.

She woke at 3 AM to find the cable still dangling there, mocking her. Marcus's words echoed: *You're always swimming away.* Maybe he'd meant she was escaping. Or maybe he'd meant she was drowning, and he was tired of watching.

Elena went to the kitchen, filled a glass with water, and swallowed another vitamin. This time, she let herself feel it: the harsh reality that some things can't be supplemented back into existence. Some cables fray past the point of splicing. Some swimming is just drifting.

She touched the bare copper wire where the insulation had stripped away. A tiny spark — not of connection, but of something ending finally and completely.

Outside, the first light of dawn crept across the floorboards. Elena realized she'd stopped swimming at some point in the night. She was standing still on solid ground, and for the first time in years, she could feel the weight of her own body pressing down against the earth.