Signal Loss
The HDMI cable lay tangled on the floor like a dead snake. That's how Mark thought of it — dead, severed, useless. Six weeks after Sarah's funeral, and he was still staring at things she'd touched, things that now felt like artifacts from a civilization he no longer understood.
His iPhone buzzed with another condolence text. Someone from accounting. "So sorry for your loss." The words blurred together after the twentieth time. He swiped them away, watching messages disappear like bubbles rising to the surface and bursting. Gone, but the water still rippling.
The goldfish — Sarah's goldfish, technically — swam in its bowl on the windowsill. She'd named it Picasso because of the orange blotch on its head that looked like a cubist portrait. Picasso traced the bowl's perimeter in endless, methodical circles. Mark found himself mesmerized by the fish's relentless, meaningless journey.
"Maybe you're waiting for food," he murmured, the first words he'd spoken all morning. The sound surprised him, raw and rusty in the quiet apartment.
He reached for the fish food on the windowsill. His movements felt heavy, like swimming through thick water. Everything reminded him of Sarah. The way she used to talk to the fish while cooking dinner. Her laughter when Picasso did something unexpectedly clever.
The iPhone lit up again. This time, his brother.
"Mark? You there?"
He pressed the phone to his ear, hearing the concern in his brother's voice. A lifeline he wasn't sure he wanted to grab.
"I'm here," Mark said, though he wasn't sure that was true anymore.
"You need to eat, Mark. You need to get out of that apartment."
Mark watched Picasso complete another circuit of the bowl. The fish's methodical movement seemed to mock his own frozen existence.
"I'll think about it," he said, knowing he wouldn't.
After the call ended, Mark sat on the couch. The cable still lay on the floor. He should reconnect the TV. Should do something, anything, to break the pattern of his days. But that would mean moving forward, and forward felt like betraying the memory of everything he'd lost.
Picasso swam past, its orange head catching the afternoon light. In that moment, Mark understood something profound: grief wasn't a problem to solve. It was a territory to inhabit.
The iPhone's screen darkened. Mark sat, watching the fish swim its endless circles, and for the first time in six weeks, he didn't try to escape the stillness.