The Last Conversation

Marcus found the old coaxial cable in his pocket while waiting at the hospice center—same kind we'd used to hook up that stolen television freshman year, wire stripped bare at both ends, connecting us to nothing and everything.

He was sitting in the dayroom when I arrived. thinner than the photographs Elena had shown me, skin pulled tight across bones like parchment over wire. He didn't look up from his hands until I was standing right in front of him.

—David,

he said, like he'd just seen me yesterday instead of seven years ago.

We'd been friends once, the kind that seems permanent in your twenties. Friends who sleep on each other's couches, finish each other's sentences, share bank accounts and secrets and terrible decisions. Until I wasn't.

—You look like shit,

I said, sitting in the vinyl chair beside him.

—Cancer'll do that,

he said, and his laugh was a dry, rattle-y thing.

We sat in silence for a long minute. The hospice center smelled like disinfectant and old flowers and something underlying, something sweet and terrible.

—Why are you here?

he asked finally.

—Elena called. Said you asked.

—I didn't think you'd come.

—I shouldn't have.

He nodded like this was the answer he'd expected.

—The sphinx,

he said suddenly.

I stared at him.

—What?

—That riddle. What walks on four legs in the morning, two at noon, three in the evening. We talked about it once, remember? You said the answer was just—humanity. Crawling and walking and leaning. The goddamn tragedy of needing help.

I remembered. College roof, cheap wine, us shouting into the dark about everything and nothing while the city hummed beneath us.

—And you said the real answer was that eventually the answer didn't matter,

I said. —Because the sphinx was just waiting to eat you either way.

—Yeah.

He smiled, just a little.

—I should've called,

I said. The words felt like stones in my throat. —After Sarah left. After everything. I should've—

—I know.

—I was being a stubborn son of a bitch.

—You were being you.

He reached for my hand and I let him take it. His palm was dry, paper-thin, heartbeat fluttering beneath my thumb like a trapped bird.

—I wanted to tell you,

he said, —that you were right. About the sphinx. About the goddamn riddle not mattering. What matters is who's sitting beside you when it's time to answer.

I held his hand until his sister came to collect him, until the staff gently reminded me about visiting hours, until the old cable burned like hope in my pocket, stripped and waiting to be connected to something that could save us.