The Riddle of notifications

Maya's iPhone buzzed against her lunch tray like an angry hornet. Another notification. Probably someone posting about a party she wasn't invited to, again.

"You gonna check that?" asked Liam, sliding into the seat across from her.

"Maybe later." She shoved the phone deeper into her pocket. "My parents set up that stupid screen-time tracker. If I go over my limit, they'll take it for a week."

"Brutal." Liam sympathy-pouted. "How's the sphinx project coming?"

"Don't ask." Maya groaned. "Mr. Harrison says our History of Mythology group project has to be 'next level creative.' We're supposed to present tomorrow and I've got nothing."

The school was hosting the district mythology exhibit that weekend, and Maya's group had drawn the Egyptian sphinx. She'd been staring at blank PowerPoint slides for three days.

"What if you did something with riddles?" Liam suggested. "Sphinxes are all about riddles, right?"

"Yeah, but nobody cares about riddles anymore." Maya flicked a carrot at her tray. "They care about TikTok dances and who's dating who and whose instagram aesthetic is on point. Not ancient Egyptian cats with human heads."

Her phone buzzed again. And again. Six notifications in rapid succession.

"You good?" Liam's voice softened. "You've been super stressed lately."

"It's just..." Maya swallowed hard. "My best friend since elementary school, Sarah? She posted this photo dump of her 'squad' from Jordan's party last weekend. I wasn't in any of them. She literally tagged everyone but me."

"Ouch."

"And then my ex posted this story making fun of how I supposedly 'couldn't handle' being popular because I'm 'too sensitive.' Like having feelings is a weakness or something."

"People suck." Liam shook his head.

"But the worst part?" Maya's voice cracked. "I keep checking. I keep scrolling. I bear it, you know? I just take it, like I deserve it or something."

"You don't deserve that, Maya."

"I know, but..." Her phone buzzed three more times. She ignored it. "Liam, what if the real riddle isn't about mythology? What if it's about why we do this to ourselves?"

"What?"

"Think about it." Maya's eyes lit up. "The sphinx asks riddles and destroys those who can't answer. But social media is worse—it destroys us even when we're 'winning.' The riddle isn't 'what walks on four legs then two then three.' The riddle is 'why do we let something that's supposed to connect us make us feel so alone?'

Liam stared at her. "Whoa."

"And the answer isn't to delete everything or go live in the woods." Maya pulled out her iPhone. "It's to remember who I was before this thing controlled me. To bear the discomfort of missing out, because FOMO is just fear dressed up as social pressure."

"So... you're gonna present that for your project?"

"No." Maya grinned. "I'm gonna present something better. I'm going to create an interactive sphinx installation that asks real riddles about modern life. Like 'What has cameras but can't see, connects people but creates distance, and captures moments but kills the present?'

"An iPhone." Liam answered immediately.

"Exactly." Maya's smile widened. "And the sphinx will reveal that the answer isn't technology itself—it's how we let it use us."

"Maya, that's actually genius."

"Right?" She laughed. "And when the exhibit opens this weekend, instead of checking my notifications every five seconds, I'm going to be standing in front of that sphinx like yeah, I figured something out. Something real."

Her iPhone buzzed one more time.

"Aren't you gonna check that?" Liam asked.

Maya smiled and didn't reach for her pocket. "No. I'm done letting it control me. Let's work on our presentation."

"Nice. But first?" Liam pointed at her phone. "You should probably delete those apps. Just for the weekend."

"Yeah." Maya nodded. "Just for the weekend. But maybe... maybe a little longer."

"Baby steps, Maya. Baby steps."

She didn't check her phone again until she got home that evening. By then, she'd missed 37 notifications, 12 stories, and 8 group chat messages. And she didn't even care.

The sphinx had nothing on her. She'd figured out the hardest riddle of all: how to be herself in a world that wanted everyone to be the same.

That night, she dreamed of lions with human heads and phones that buzzed like bees, and when she woke up, she finally felt like she could breathe again.