The Riddle of the Screen

Maya sat across from Elena at their corner table, watching her friend's thumbs dance across the iPhone screen like they were solving some invisible puzzle. They hadn't spoken since the waiter took their order twelve minutes ago.

"You know," Maya said, tracing the rim of her wine glass, "the Sphinx asked riddles too."

Elena didn't look up. "What?"

"In the myth. The Sphinx outside Thebes. She asked riddles, and if you couldn't answer, she killed you."

Elena finally glanced up, her iPhone still clutched in her hand like a talisman. "That's cheerful."

"I'm just saying. Sometimes the person asking the questions is the monster."

Maya's iPhone buzzed in her pocket. She knew what it was — could feel it like a phantom limb. She'd seen Elena's phone earlier that afternoon, lying unlocked on the couch. A message chain Maya wasn't supposed to see. Messages that unravelled three years of friendship in six text bubbles.

"You've been weird all night," Elena said, pocketing her phone at last.

"Have I?"

"Yes. More than usual."

The waiter arrived with their food. Maya watched Elena pick at her salad, her phone resting on the table like a third dinner guest.

"What does it feel like?" Maya asked.

"What does what feel like?"

"Knowing you're the riddle and the answer both."

Elena stilled. "Maya, what are you talking about?"

"The messages, Elena. I saw them on your iPhone. When you were in the bathroom."

Elena's face went carefully blank, her expression as inscrutable as stone. In the dim restaurant light, with her sharp features and sudden stillness, she really did resemble a Sphinx — a creature of secrets and impossible questions.

"How much did you see?"

"Enough."

"You shouldn't have been looking."

"And you shouldn't have been sleeping with him."

The words hung between them, heavy and final. Elena's phone buzzed again. Neither of them moved to answer it.

"Say the riddle," Maya said quietly. "Go ahead. Ask me what you want to know."

Elena looked at her phone, then at Maya, then back at the phone. "I don't think you want me to ask what I really want to know."

"Try me."

"All right." Elena set her phone down and met Maya's eyes for the first time all evening. "What's the creature that walks on four legs in the morning, two legs at noon, and three legs in the evening?"

Maya smiled, a small, sad thing. "A human. From childhood to old age."

"And what do you call the human who pretends not to see what's right in front of them?" Elena asked. "Who scrolls through messages they know will hurt them, who sits through dinner with someone who betrayed them?"

Maya was silent.

"That's a riddle I never learned the answer to," Elena said softly.

She reached for her iPhone, hesitated, then left it on the table.

"I'm sorry," she said.

Maya stood up, leaving her own phone beside her plate. Some questions, she realized, didn't have answers. Some Sphinxes devoured you not because you failed to solve them, but because you finally did.