The Static

The digital eye on the stand

stared back, red numbers fixed,

a dead thing. Seven-oh-one.

It hadn't rung. Or I hadn't heard.

It's all the same, isn't it?

The silent loss.

This morning, the hum

of the office cooler, then their voices,

thin, through the breakroom door.

"He pitched it well," one said.

"Such a clear vision."

And the other agreed.

A quiet, affirming hum.

My own vision,

already packed away,

folded flat beneath the desk.

No use now.

The low static in my ears,

the kind you feel, not hear,

of a future that just

didn't arrive.