Charging the Sphinx

The charging cable lay between them like a fraying truce. Sarah watched the white cord snake across the sheets, connecting her iPhone to the wall socket—a lifeline to a world that had somehow become more real than the marriage itself.

Mark hadn't moved in an hour. He lay on his back, face illuminated by his own phone's glow, scrolling through something that held more interest than she did. She'd become a sphinx in their bed: an ancient riddle he'd stopped trying to solve years ago. What does a woman want? What does she need? He'd long ago abandoned the questions.

Sarah's thumb hovered over her sister's text. "You don't have to stay." The words glowed with dangerous possibility.

The cable, she realized, was the perfect metaphor. Once, they'd been wired together, charged by the same current. Now they were two separate devices, tethered only by proximity, each draining the other's battery.

She unplugged her phone. The message remained unsent, but the decision crystallized in the sudden silence.

"Mark?"

He didn't look up. "Hmm?"

"The sphinx," she said softly. "You know what happens when you stop answering the riddle?"

"What?" Another scroll, another flick.

"You get devoured."

She gathered her things, leaving the cable behind—a white snake curled on his sheets, waiting for someone else to plug it in.