Signal Loss

The cat—a calico she'd impulsively named Quantum when physics still seemed romantic—sat on the windowsill watching rain streak the glass. Elena hadn't wanted the cat. Marcus had brought it home three years ago, a rescue kitten with matted fur and one ear that wouldn't stand up. Now Marcus was gone, and the cat was hers.

Her iPhone buzzed against the nightstand. Another notification from her mother: 'Have you taken your vitamin D? Seasonal depression is real.' Elena swiped it away without responding. The vitamins sat in a cabinet beside a bag of organic spinach that was already wilting, another testament to good intentions decaying in real time.

What she wanted was a cigarette. What she settled for was standing in the kitchen at 2 AM, eating spinach leaves from the bag while her ex-husband's HDMI cable still snaked across the floorboard like a dark artery she couldn't bring herself to sever.

Marcus had texted earlier: 'I think I left my charger.'

She'd stared at the message until the screen dimmed. He was asking about a cable. About a piece of plastic-coated copper worth maybe four dollars. He wasn't asking how she was sleeping. He wasn't asking if she'd finally sold the motorcycle he'd bought on credit, the one that sat under a tarp in the garage collecting spiderwebs. He wanted his cable.

Quantum jumped from the windowsill and wound through Elena's legs, purring. The cat didn't care about broken promises or deferred dreams or the way love could calcify into resentment so gradually you didn't notice until you were already hollowed out. The cat wanted warmth, and food, and sometimes to be left alone. It was a simpler arrangement.

Elena's phone lit up again. Marcus: 'Can I come by tomorrow?'

She typed 'No' and watched the cursor blink. Deleted it. Typed 'Sure.' Deleted that too. In the end she didn't reply at all. Instead she went to the cabinet and shook a vitamin into her palm. Dry-swallowed it. The cat watched with something that looked like judgment.

Outside, rain continued falling on a city that didn't notice she was lonely. Inside, she made another decision: tomorrow she would buy HDMI cables at Target. She would leave them in a box by the door. She would not be home when he came.

Quantum meowed, demanding to be fed. Elena opened a can of expensive cat food—Marcus had always said it was a waste of money—and watched the animal eat with devoted enthusiasm. Some hungers were simple. Some could be satisfied.

She left the spinach on the counter. Somewhere in the apartment, her iPhone pinged with another notification. She didn't check it.