The Riddle of the Broken Screen

The sphinx stared back at me with granite indifference, its lion body and human face frozen in eternal mystery. I sat on the museum bench beside it, nursing my third gin and tonic from the flask in my pocket — security had stopped checking hours ago.

My iPhone lay shattered on the marble floor, a spiderweb of cracked glass reflecting the harsh gallery lights. Sarah's last message glowed through the fractures: *We need to talk.* Five words that had unraveled my marriage, my career, whatever stability I'd convinced myself I'd built.

"You look like shit," came a voice from behind.

Marcus. My oldest friend, the one person who'd witnessed every iteration of my unraveling. He sat beside me, smelling of expensive cologne and bad decisions.

"Ran into a bull," I said, gesturing vaguely at the phone.

"Literal or metaphorical?"

"Does it matter?"

He laughed, that sharp bark of humor he always deployed when things were truly hopeless. "Metaphorical bulls don't usually require stitches."

I touched my split lip gingerly. Fair point.

Outside, a stray cat — the same one I'd seen haunting the museum courtyard for weeks — padded silently through the gardens, its amber eyes catching the moonlight. There was something about its watchful presence, the way it moved through shadows like it owned them.

"You know what the sphinx asked," I said, the alcohol finally hitting my bloodstream. "The riddle. What walks on four legs in the morning, two at noon, three in the evening."

"Man," Marcus said. "It's always man."

"That's the answer they wanted. But I've been thinking..." I gestured at the broken phone, at the museum around us, at the cat disappearing into darkness. "Maybe the real answer is loneliness. It crawls when you're young, runs when you think you've outrun it, and leans on a cane when you realize you never will."

Marcus was quiet for a long moment. Then he placed something in my hand — his phone, unlocked and glowing with a new message.

"Sarah's been trying to reach me too," he said softly. "She thinks we should both know."

The message wasn't about me leaving. It was about her staying — with someone else. Someone I'd called my friend.

The sphinx smiled enigmatically in the dim light. Some riddles have answers that don't fix anything at all.