Static Between Us

The cat hadn't moved from the windowsill in three days, watching the street below with a judgment I couldn't escape. Marcus used to say she was our relationship barometer—aloof when things were good, needy when we were falling apart. Now she just watched us both like we were strangers sharing a lease.

I found him in the living room at 2 AM, bathed in the blue flicker of the television. Some zombie movie marathon—undead creatures staggering through abandoned cities, hunger without satisfaction, movement without purpose. The irony sat heavy between us. That's what we'd become: two people moving through the motions of marriage, eating dinner, asking about days we didn't care about, fucking by rote every other Saturday like it was on some cosmic checklist.

'Remember the goldfish?' I asked, sinking into the couch beside him.

He turned. 'The ones from the fair? That died in a week?'

'No. The ones we bought when we moved in together. The orange ones. Remember how we named them Hope and Optimism?'

Marcus actually smiled, sad and small. 'God. We were so annoyingly happy then.'

'They lasted two years,' I said. 'Longer than we probably will at this rate.'

The cable box blinked at us—a steady, heartbeat-like pulse that was the only living thing in the room. I'd canceled our subscription weeks ago, but the connection hadn't been cut yet. We were living on borrowed signal, suspended between subscription and cancellation, much like everything else about us.

'I don't want to be a zombie anymore,' Marcus said finally.

'Then eat something real,' I said. 'Feel something that hurts. Stop watching other people's fake apocalypses and survive our actual one.'

The cat jumped down, crossed the room, and settled between us—her tail flicking against my thigh, her head pressing into Marcus's hand. We sat there like that, not touching each other, both touching her, while the zombie movie played to its inevitable end and the cable box kept counting down something we couldn't afford to renew.