Untangling

Maya stared at the tangled mess of ethernet cables beneath her desk, the neon lights of the trading floor casting a bruised purple glow across everything. Forty-two years old and she was still untangling knots—literal and metaphorical.

"The market's charging like a **bull** in a china shop," Paul had bellowed earlier, his face flushed with that specific excitement that meant money was being made or lost in quantities that should terrify any reasonable human being. He'd clapped her on the shoulder, his palm damp through her silk blouse. "You're missing it, Maya. The fear index is dropping. People are greedy again."

She'd nodded, murmured something about reviewing the algorithm outputs, and retreated to her cubicle.

Now it was midnight. The cleaning crew's vacuum hummed in the distance like a dying animal. Maya peeled apart the Velcro cable wrap she'd bought three years ago, back when she still believed in organization systems and five-year plans. Back when David lived in the apartment that now held too much furniture and not enough laughter.

The **cable** refused to cooperate. It snarled around her fingers, mocking her with its obstinate knots. She thought about David leaving—that final Sunday when he'd stood in the doorway with his suitcase, looking at her like she was a stranger he'd once loved. "You don't even know what you want anymore, Maya. You're just... drifting."

He was right. She was drifting through a career that paid her in six figures but cost her pieces of herself she couldn't name. Drifting through dates with men who looked good on paper but left her hollow. Drifting through days that blurred into sameness.

Her stomach growled, reminding her she'd skipped dinner. From her bag, she pulled the **orange** she'd grabbed from the communal bowl—a small defiant act against the corporate catering that arrived daily in plastic containers. She dug her thumbnail into the peel, releasing a burst of citrus that cut through the recycled office air, through the smell of old coffee and carpet cleaner and the metallic tang of her own exhaustion.

The orange segments were tart and perfect. She ate them leaning back in her ergonomic chair, watching the scrolling ticker of stocks she couldn't bring herself to care about anymore. Tomorrow she would quit. Tomorrow she would call her sister and cry properly, not just in the shower. Tomorrow she would buy new cables that weren't frayed at the ends.

Tonight, she simply sat, orange-sticky fingers resting on the keyboard, and for the first time in years, allowed herself to want something real.