The Orange Cable

The coaxial cable lay coiled on the floor like a dead snake, its copper guts exposed where the jacket had frayed. Marcus stared at it, the way he'd stared at everything for the past six weeks—with a sort of hollow fascination, as if the broken pieces of his life might suddenly reassemble themselves if he only watched them long enough.

He should have packed it. Instead he stood in the center of his living room, surrounded by cardboard boxes, wearing his father's old watch cap. The hat was too big. It slipped down over his ears, making everything sound muffled and distant, which was exactly how he wanted it.

"You can't just leave it," Sarah had said yesterday. Her hair had been different then—shorter, dark at the roots where the blonde was growing out. She'd stood in this same room, picking at the loose thread on the sofa cushion. "The cable company. You have to cancel the service."

"I know," he'd said.

"You say that about everything."

Now the room was empty except for him and the cable and the single navel orange rolling across the floorboards where he'd dropped it. Sarah had bought a bag of them last week, before she moved out. Before the market turned and his portfolio collapsed and the divorce papers landed like final judgment. This orange had sat on the counter since Tuesday, growing softer, a small rotting sun in the apartment's dusk.

Marcus bent down, his knees clicking, and retrieved it. The skin gave slightly under his thumb. He should eat it. He should do a lot of things.

The December wind was already howling through the cracks around the windows. He pulled the hat lower, shifted the weight of his duffel bag. He'd have to bear it—all of it—the way his father had borne his mother's death, the way people always bore what they once thought would break them.

He stepped over the cable, opened the door, and did not look back.