The Last Cable Cut

Maya's phone buzzed for the third time in two minutes, and she felt like a zombie — eyes glazed, brain foggy, scrolling through the same three posts she'd seen a thousand times before. Her mom had cut the internet cable. Again.

"It's for your own good," her mom had said that morning, standing in Maya's doorway with the severed cable in hand like it was some kind of trophy. "You haven't left your room in days. Your friends from school are probably wondering if you moved away."

Maya had rolled her eyes so hard she'd given herself a headache. "I'm hanging out with them literally all day at school. What more do you want?"

Now she was lying on her bed, staring at the ceiling, watching dust motes dance in the afternoon sunlight. Her cat, Barnaby, was curled up beside her, purring like a tiny motor. Barnaby didn't care about follower counts or who was mad at whom or whether Maya had posted enough to stay relevant.

"You're living the dream, Barnaby," Maya whispered, scratching behind his ears. "No DMs. No drama. No existence crisis every five seconds."

Barnaby opened one yellow eye, considered her, then went back to sleep.

The thing was, Maya actually liked her friends. Most of them, anyway. But lately it felt like everyone was performing all the time — curating their feeds, their outfits, their personalities. Maya caught herself doing it too, becoming this weird zombie version of herself, saying what she thought people wanted to hear, liking what she thought she was supposed to like.

She sat up, restless. Without her phone to scroll, her brain was actually starting to work again. She thought about Jordan from her English class, who'd been trying to talk to her for weeks. Maya had been too absorbed in her screen to really notice, too caught up in whatever drama was unfolding online to pay attention to what was happening right in front of her.

Jordan was funny. Jordan drew comics in the margins of their notebook and never seemed to care what anyone thought.

Maya grabbed her sketchbook from under her bed. She hadn't drawn in months, not since she'd started worrying about whether her art was "aesthetic" enough to post.

Barnaby stretched and hopped off the bed, following her to the desk where she sat down, pencil in hand. For the first time in forever, she wasn't thinking about how many likes something would get. She was just thinking about what she wanted to create.

Her phone sat dark and useless on her nightstand. The cable was still disconnected. And maybe that wasn't the worst thing in the world.

Outside her window, the real world was happening. Tomorrow she'd actually talk to Jordan. Tonight, she'd draw.

The zombie was waking up.