Unspooling

The HDMI cable lay coiled on his desk like a black snake, spent and purposeless now. Three monitors, twelve years, and this was what remained — a five-dollar connection he'd have to turn in or pay for.

Marcus pulled his favorite beanie hat lower over his temples. The same hat he'd worn to every product launch, every hackathon, every emergency deployment at 3 AM. Security hadn't even looked at it when he walked past them this morning, box in hand. Just another Tuesday in the glass palace.

His iPhone buzzed — the team group chat, already moving on. "Who's taking the lead on the Q3 roadmap?" Someone asked. No one mentioned his name. No one said they'd miss him. He was being edited out in real-time, a soft delete in progress.

At home, Sarah had left a container of wilted spinach in the fridge. He'd meant to cook it Sunday, before the Sunday when he'd opened his laptop to find the calendar invite: "Career Transition Meeting — 15 minutes." Two days later, the spinach was still there, a small monument to all the things he kept meaning to get to.

He unplugged the cable from his laptop, watching the external monitors go dark simultaneously. His own face reflected back at him in the black mirrors — forty-two years old, eyes tired, hat slightly crooked. He didn't recognize himself.

"You good, Marcus?" asked Jenna from the next desk. She wasn't looking up from her iPhone.

"Yeah," he said. "Just unspooling."

She laughed, assuming he meant the cable.

He meant his life.