The Cut Cord

The coaxial cable lay severed on the living room carpet like a dead snake, its copper entrails exposed. Mara stared at it, wine glass in hand, feeling an odd kinship with the severed wire. Three years of marriage, and somehow she and David had stopped transmitting signal to each other somewhere around month twenty-eight.

She'd gone swimming that morning — her daily attempt to drown out the noise in her head. The community pool at 6 AM was a baptism of fluorescent blue and silence, each lap a prayer she wasn't sure anyone was hearing. Backstroke, thinking about how she and David had become two people sharing a bed, a mortgage, a Netflix account, but no longer touching each other's souls.

He'd called at noon. Something about a server migration. Something about staying late at the office. The same something he'd been saying three nights a week for six months.

The orange glow of sunset hit the living room windows, catching dust motes dancing in the silence. An orange. She remembered buying them at the farmer's market on Sunday, David's hand warm in hers as they'd walked between stalls. They'd laughed about something — she couldn't remember what now. That's how it went: the small moments eroding like coastline, until you looked up and realized everything had changed shape.

She peeled the orange on the couch, the citrus spray sharp in the stagnant air. The TV wouldn't work anyway without the cable. David would be annoyed when he came home. He liked his shows, his routine, the predictable comfort of scrolling through channels until his eyes glazed over.

Mara ate the orange in sections, each burst of sour-sweet making her throat ache. She could call the cable company. She could wait. She could pack a bag.

She stood up, the cable still severed on the floor, and walked toward the bedroom to pack. Some connections weren't worth reterminating.