The Ethernet Cord Around His Neck

The fraying **baseball** **hat** sat on the dashboard, his father's sweat still ghosting the brim after three years. Elias hadn't washed it. Some superstitions survived even after faith didn't.

The coaxial **cable** dangled from the wall where his father had ripped it out during one of his rages — the last one, before the stroke that folded him like a lawn chair. Elias had meant to fix it. Three years of meaning to.

"You're **swimming** in the past," Maria had told him that morning, packing her box. "I can't watch you drown anymore."

She was right. The house was a museum of a childhood he'd romanticized into something it never was. The **baseball** trophies collecting dust were Participation Era consolation prizes for a father who never showed up to the games. The **hat** was just fabric stained with the salt of a man who'd forgotten how to love anything that couldn't be controlled with a remote.

Elias sat on the floor and wrapped the loose **cable** around his hand. It reminded him of **swimming** lessons at the Y — how his father had stood on the deck, newspaper in front of his face, pretending not to watch his son sink to the bottom of the pool again and again.

"Just let go," the instructor had said.

He hadn't learned then. But Maria's keys still jingled in the parking lot, and she was waiting to see if he'd follow.

Elias placed the **hat** in the trash box with the other relics. The **cable** could stay disconnected — maybe he'd read instead. Maybe he'd finally learn to **swim**.

The front door closed behind him. In the distance, Maria's car engine started. He walked toward the sound, leaving the ghosts to their dusty trophies.