Sunday's Unanswered Bull

Elena sat on her fire escape, the seventh papaya she'd bought that month rotting on the counter inside. Her hair—once thick, now thinning at thirty-seven—caught in the humidity as she lit a cigarette. The cable guy had left three hours ago, leaving behind dusty footprints and a note about payment arrangements.

"You're like a bull in a china shop," Marcus had told her that morning, packing his suitcase. He'd taken the good hat, the charcoal wool one they'd bought in Paris.

Now she stared at the city skyline, smoke curling around her fingers. The papaya had seemed like a good idea yesterday—a promise to herself that she'd start eating better, living better. Instead, it sat there, a moldy metaphor for every intention she'd abandoned.

Her phone buzzed. A notification from LinkedIn: Marcus at a new firm, looking "thrilled." Elena tossed the phone onto the couch cushion.

downstairs, someone yelled about a parking ticket. The cable news droned from her neighbor's open window—something about markets, about bulls and bears, about how everything was either surging or collapsing.

She'd bought the papaya because her mother used to cut them for breakfast, sprinkling lime juice across the bright orange flesh. Her mother, who'd died with hair like steel wool and secrets Elena had never uncovered.

Elena stood up, grabbed the hat Marcus had left behind—a cheap baseball cap from some tech conference—and put it on. It didn't fit right. Nothing did anymore.

The papaya would still be there tomorrow. The cable bill would come due. Marcus wasn't coming back.

She exhaled, watching smoke rise toward the heavy sky, and for the first time all day, didn't think about what came next.