The Cable Break

Frank sat alone in his living room, the flickering glow of the television casting shadows across walls that still bore the ghosts of Anna's paintings. She'd taken everything else when she left three months ago—furniture, dishes, even the good coffee maker—but the paintings had been too large, too permanently affixed to remove without damaging the plaster.

Now they watched him like silent witnesses.

On the screen, a **baseball** game unfolded in high definition. The Yankees were losing, again. Frank couldn't remember why he'd started watching. He'd never cared about sports. Anna had. She'd screamed at the television during playoffs, her glass of wine sloshing dangerously as she cursed umpires and celebrated home runs with equal ferocity.

The **cable** connection flickered, pixels dissolving into gray static before snapping back to clarity. Third time in an hour. Frank considered calling the provider, then remembered he'd already cancelled the service. What he was watching was a recording, Anna's final game before she'd walked out with a suitcase and a hollow apology about needing "something real."

He reached for the fruit bowl on the counter—Anna's bowl, hand-thrown ceramic in a shade of deep **orange** that had always seemed too vibrant for their muted kitchen. A single orange sat there, shriveling slowly like his hope that she might return.

Frank peeled it mechanically, his movements practiced and empty. The scent of citrus hit him, sudden and sharp, transporting him back to their honeymoon in Barcelona. They'd sat on a hotel balcony eating oranges they'd bought from a market vendor, sticky juice running down their chins, drunk on wine and new love and the certainty that they'd never be lonely again.

The cable cut out completely this time, leaving him in silence with the shriveled fruit and the orange ceramic bowl and the overwhelming knowledge that some things, once broken, couldn't be fixed by simply reconnecting the wire.

Frank ate the orange anyway. It was bitter.