The Riddle of Channel 47

The baseball game droned on at 2 AM—bottom of the ninth, two outs, runners in scoring position. Mark sat on my couch, the one we'd picked out together at IKEA during that month we pretended we were just friends. He hadn't changed out of his work clothes. The cable company had been laying him off in stages, taking his dignity with each round of cuts.

"They're keeping the sphinx," he said, gesturing at the paused screen. The mascot grinned frozenly, its fiberglass enigma suspended mid-riddle.

"What's the riddle?" I asked, though I knew. We both knew.

He didn't answer. The cable flickered—static interrupting the lie we'd been living for three years, since that night at O'Malley's when his hand brushed mine and we both pretended it was an accident. He was married then. He was married now, though his wife had moved out two weeks ago.

"I can't stay here," he said finally. "The cable's getting cut tomorrow anyway."

"Your job or—" I motioned between us, where the unsaid things lived like ghosts.

"Both."

The announcer's voice returned: "And there it goes, folks—another one lost to the night."

Mark stood up, his keys jingling like coins in a fountain of wishes that never came true. "You were always more than a friend to me," he said, the words falling like ash. "But riddles need answers, and I never figured out yours."

"My riddle was simple," I said, but I let it hang there. Some sphinxes don't give up their secrets.

He nodded once, sadly, and walked out the door. The baseball game faded to commercial. I watched the cable go dark, screen reflecting a face that had been waiting for something that was never going to happen anyway. Some games end in extra innings. Some just end.Only the sphinx remained, smiling its knowing smile in the black mirror, keeper of all the questions we never ask until it's too late for answers.