The Last Transmission

Maya sat on the floor of her apartment at 2 AM, surrounded by a tangle of ethernet cables like black snakes. She'd spent the entire day configuring the home office system for a VP who'd insisted on "seamless integration" between his three monitors and his ego. The cables were supposed to be invisible, tucked behind baseboards and through walls, but here they were, spilling across her living room like her own unraveled patience.

Her phone buzzed. David.

"You coming to bed?"

"Almost done with this install," she typed, though they both knew she wasn't. The cable ends had stopped fitting together hours ago. Nothing fit anymore.

She stretched her hand out, palm up, and traced the line that ran from her wrist to her middle finger. The lifeline. Her mother had read palms at parties when Maya was a child, insisting she saw things — futures, deaths, marriages. Maya had always thought it was nonsense. But now, at thirty-four, she found herself staring at her own palm as if it might contain answers she couldn't Google.

Her hair fell forward, a curtain she'd been hiding behind since she'd found the first gray strand three weeks ago. She pulled it back, caught the elastic band between her teeth. There were more now. A constellation of silver at her temples. David said they made her look distinguished. She felt like she was disappearing.

"You're not actually working, are you?" David stood in the doorway, silhouette against the hallway light.

"No."

"Then what are you doing?"

She looked at the cables, her palm, the gray hairs she'd plucked and left on the floor like fallen leaves.

"I'm trying to remember the last time I felt something real."

David sat beside her, took her hand, traced her lifeline with his thumb. His own hair was thinning at the crown. They were both becoming ghosts of themselves, slowly.

"The cable guy's coming tomorrow," he said. "Let him finish it."

She leaned her head on his shoulder. "You think he can fix us too?"

His laugh was short, startled. Then silence. Then: "Probably not. But I'll call him anyway."

She left the cables where they lay and followed him to bed.