The Riddle of Storms

The airport terminal felt suspended between worlds, much like Sarah felt suspended between her old life and whatever came next. Outside, **lightning** fractured the Cairo sky, each flash illuminating the departure board where her flight status blinked-delayed, then delayed again.

She'd been **running** for three months now—through airports, across continents, away from the hollowed-out space her marriage had become. David had always said she was incapable of staying put, of facing what needed facing. Maybe he was right. The divorce papers sat in her bag, signed but not yet filed.

Her **iPhone** vibrated against her palm—David again, probably wanting to know if she'd actually done it this time, or maybe just to say he missed her voice. The paradox of modern heartbreak: you could be thousands of miles apart yet still connected by these glowing rectangles, tethered to each other's grief by digital threads that refused to sever cleanly.

In the terminal gift shop, a miniature **sphinx** caught her eye—stone face painted with that inscrutable smile, riddles upon riddles carved into weathered features. The ancient creature had witnessed thousands of departures, thousands of lovers leaving, thousands of reunions and farewells. What riddle would it pose her now? What walks away on two legs but returns on four?

She bought the sphinx, heavy and cold in her hand. The storm outside intensified, lightning now continuous, turning the boarding area stroboscopic. The intercom announced her gate was finally boarding.

Sarah's phone lit up one final time: a photo from David—their wedding day, her smiling like she'd never been happier, him looking at her like she was the answer to every question he'd never asked how to phrase. Below it: *I don't know what riddle we were trying to solve together, but I think we were using different alphabets.*

She pocketed the phone, picked up her carry-on, and walked toward the gate. The sphinx's smile seemed to widen in her palm. Some riddles weren't meant to be solved—only carried, like weather, like memory, like the quiet understanding that sometimes the most adult thing you can do is stop pretending you know the ending.