Terminal Disconnect

She watched him across the breakfast table, face illuminated by his iPhone screen, thumb scrolling through an endless feed of other people's curated lives. Michael had become a zombie over the past year—not the flesh-eating kind, but something far more terrifying: a man who'd hollowed himself out from the inside, leaving only a vessel for consumption and scrolling.

'Did you take your vitamins?' she asked, the question automatic, meaningless. Michael grunted, already gone, lost in the blue glow. Their conversation had devolved into household logistics, each sentence a question mark that went unanswered. He'd spent the last six months telling her he was exhausted, burnt out at the tech startup where he coded until midnight. Meanwhile, she'd discovered the freedom of lying awake beside him, imagining different futures.

The cable guy was supposed to come between noon and three. They'd stopped watching cable television years ago, but Michael insisted on keeping the subscription, paying $120 monthly for ghost channels, background noise to drown out the silence between them.

At 11:47, she saw the fox through the kitchen window—a sleek, copper-colored creature moving through their suburban backyard with impossible grace. It paused, looked directly at her through the glass, intelligence vibrating in its amber eyes. Then it vanished beneath the deck, taking something with it, leaving her wondering what she'd just witnessed.

When Michael finally emerged from his home office at 2:15, he found her sitting on the front porch, suitcase by her side.

'The cable guy isn't coming,' she said. 'I called and cancelled.'

He stared at her, then at his phone, then back at her, as if trying to place her face. 'What? Why?'

'Because I'm not coming back either.'

She watched his expression shift through stages: confusion, denial, bargaining, and finally, terrifyingly, relief. The zombie had been hungry after all—just not for anything she could feed him.

Later, driving west with no destination, she remembered the fox. How it had moved with such precision, such economy of motion. How it had taken what it needed and left no mess. She reached for her phone to call someone, anyone, then thought better of it, let it ring unanswered in the passenger seat. Some connections needed cutting, clean and permanent, before any new ones could begin.