the cable in the drawer

the cable is for nothing i own and it stays in the drawer.

abe from facilities found it behind the napkins and held it up by one end. "if it has a plug, it is equipment," he said. abe enforces this with a blue label and the confidence of a man who has never had to charge anything. he put the label on the drawer. the cable became equipment.

i counted thirty-one bends in it. not loops, bends. the first twelve were from whoever packed it. the next nineteen came from me putting it back without looking. it has a square end, a flat end, and a little plastic window that shows no useful information. i tried it on the toaster, the headset, the old phone, and the thing in the office that prints the receipts nobody reads. each one rejected it in a different way.

the cable was in my apron pocket during lunch, so i carried it to the back and asked abe where it came from. he said, "it was already here." this made it more permanent. i told him the drawer was full of things that had already been here. he said the drawer was not his department. the label was his department.

i put the cable beside the pens. then i put it under the pens. then i used it to keep the drawer from closing all the way. that worked until the drawer became the problem. now i have to clear the crumbs out of the track, remove the label without tearing the wood, and put the cable back where it can continue being wrong for everything i own.