The Geometry of Grief

The coaxial cable dangled from the wall like a severed artery, a final gift Elena had left behind—the weekend before the embolism, she'd finally upgraded us to fiber, then died before we could watch a single movie on it.

Six months later, I'm still climbing this pyramid of grief, each level harder than the last. The corporate pyramid scheme I'd fallen for—essential oils, pyramid structures, residual income—Elena had hated it. "You're better than this," she'd said, and now I was proving her wrong, still making those pathetic sales calls while her vitamin supplements sat untouched on the counter.

Miso, our tabby, appeared in the doorway, her yellow eyes accusing. She'd stopped eating after the funeral, the same way I'd stopped living. The vet said force-feed her. The grief counselor said force-feed myself. Everyone wanted to shove something down someone's throat.

I grabbed the swim trunks from the hook behind the door—Elena's Christmas gift three years ago, back when I'd actually been swimming three times a week. Back when my body had felt like something to care for rather than just a vessel for carrying sorrow.

The pool was empty at 5 AM, the water a glassy obsidian. I dove in, the cold shocking me awake. Swimming laps, I thought about the first time I'd met Elena—she'd been wearing that hideous orange cable knit sweater, laughing at some terrible joke I'd made. She'd bought those vitamins on our honeymoon. She'd chosen Miso from the shelter because "she looks like she's seen some shit."

At the end of the third lap, my chest seized—not the embolism that took her, but something else entirely. I surfaced, gasping, and finally understood what she'd meant about the pyramid schemes, about the shortcuts, about all the ways we try to cheat the slow work of becoming real people.

"Fuck," I said to the empty pool, and Miso's yellow eyes seemed to burn behind my eyelids. "Fuck."

Back home, I reconnected the cable. I fed the cat. I threw away the vitamins. I deleted the pyramid scheme app. And somewhere in the geometry of doing the actual work, I finally started the long climb down.