Digital Riddle

The iphone lay on the nightstand like a sleeping predator, its screen occasionally flickering with incoming notifications that Marina pretended not to see. Beside her, Richard's breathing had already settled into the rhythm of genuine sleep—the kind that comes from a clear conscience, or perhaps from the absence of one.

Their cat, Cleo, jumped onto the bed with that fluid, ancient grace that always reminded Marina of the sphinx—inscrutable, judgmental, knowing more than she should. The animal settled at the foot of the bed, yellow eyes reflecting the blue light of the phone.

Marina's fingers found the phone anyway. She knew better. Some truths were better left buried, some riddles unsolved. But the notification had been from Sarah—Richard's colleague, the one with the laugh like breaking glass, the one who always brought goldfish to the office aquarium as if replacing tiny lives could somehow balance out the ones she disrupted.

The messages were innocent enough on the surface. But it was the timing—2 AM, 3:30 AM—that told the real story. Not work discussions. Not friendship. Something else entirely.

In the kitchen, Marina peeled an orange, the citrus scent sharp enough to cut through the thick silence of the apartment. She watched the juice run down her fingers, sticky and bright. Cleo appeared in the doorway, sphinx-like in her assessment of Marina's unraveling.

"What do you know?" Marina whispered to the cat. "You see everything. You're probably wondering why I stay."

The cat blinked, offering no answers. Like the sphinx, she guarded her mysteries.

The goldfish in Richard's office had died last week. He'd been distraught, surprisingly so. Now Marina understood—it wasn't just a fish. It was the last living thing that knew about the late-night messages, the only other creature awake when Richard's phone lit up beside Marina's sleeping face.

She returned to the bedroom, iphone still in hand, and placed it back on the nightstand. Richard stirred, murmured something unintelligible, and settled deeper into dreams. Marina lay beside him, Cleo resuming her vigil at the foot of the bed, all of them caught in the riddle of a marriage that had become something none of them could name anymore.