The Riddle of Empty Rooms

The **cable** had been cut three weeks ago when Elena moved out, leaving me with a television that showed nothing but static and my own hollow reflection. I sat on the beige couch we'd bought together, now pushed against the wrong wall, nursing a glass of **water** from a tap that always tasted faintly of copper regardless of how many times the superintendent promised to fix it.

On the coffee table, her orange **vitamin** jar stood sentinel—she'd been taking those supplements for years, some boutique brand that promised better skin, more energy, a better version of yourself through chemistry and hope. I opened it and shook two capsules into my palm, swallowing them dry, as if absorbing something of her might fill the hollow spaces she'd left behind.

The riddle she'd posed that final night hovered like the **sphinx** at the crossroads: destroy yourself slowly in a marriage that's become a habit, or destroy yourself quickly by ending it? She'd chosen quick destruction, packing her life into boxes while I watched, paralyzed by the terrible mathematics of loss.

I found the ticket stub in her nightstand drawer while I was supposed to be packing the rest of her things. A **baseball** game from six years ago—our second date, when summer still stretched endless before us and every moment felt like the beginning of something instead of the end. She'd kept it all this time, tucked between insurance policies and expired warranties, a small paper ghost of who we used to be.

The vitamins dissolved somewhere inside me, useless without belief. Outside, rain began to fall, and somewhere in the distance, a car alarm cut through the silence, sounding almost like a question, or perhaps an answer I wasn't ready to hear.