Riddles in Departures

The papaya sat untouched on her tray, its flesh the color of a bruised sunset. Elena watched it oxidize, brown spots blooming like time-lapse photography of decay. Gate 42. The announcement echoed through terminal B—her flight to Chicago was finally boarding.

Three hours earlier, David had stood in their kitchen, his iPhone clutched like a rosary. "I can't do this anymore," he'd said, not looking at her. "The riddles. The silence. I'm tired of guessing what you're thinking."

The sphinx she'd bought in Cairo last summer watched from the windowsill—a souvenir from their last trip together, before the distance between them had become measured in more than miles. Its limestone face eroded by centuries, yet somehow more expressive than David had been in months.

"You want clarity," she'd replied. "Some things aren't clear. Some things are riddles you solve by living them."

He'd left with his duffel bag, taking nothing else. Not the baseball glove they'd bought at that flea market in Austin, not the sphinx, not the half-finished crossword puzzle on the counter.

Now her phone buzzed. A text from him: *I'm sorry. I thought I could be the person who loved your silences. But I need someone who speaks.*

Elena deleted it without responding. The sphinx had asked its travelers: "What walks on four legs in the morning, two at noon, three in the evening?" Man. The answer was always man—transforming, aging, becoming something different through pain and time. David wanted answers. Elena had always been more interested in the questions.

She touched the papaya's skin. Beneath the surface, sweetness. Rot. Both true, depending on who tasted it. Some people needed precision. She preferred the mess.

The gate agent called her row. Elena stood, leaving the fruit behind, carrying only the sphinx in her pocket—a small stone riddle pressing against her hip. Some loves were like baseball: three strikes and you're out. Others were like the sphinx—inscrutable, ancient, demanding you live with not knowing.

She stepped onto the jet bridge, finally ready to discover which kind she was becoming.