The riddle of the sphinx cable

The lightning outside Mira's apartment window fractured the sky into electric veins, illuminating the cardboard box she'd packed but couldn't bring herself to seal. Inside lay everything from three years with David—the mismatched mugs, his dog-eared paperbacks, the sphinx snow globe from their trip to Cairo that had sat on their bedside table like a cryptic warning she'd refused to interpret.

Her phone buzzed. David's name on the screen. She'd ended it six hours ago after discovering he'd been hedging his bets with a coworker, maintaining another emotional connection like some redundant backup cable in case their relationship failed. The betrayal wasn't the infidelity itself; it was the tepidness of it, the cowardly pragmatism. He'd called it "compartmentalization." She called it lacking the courage to choose.

Her golden retriever, Banjo, whined at the thunder, pressing his warm weight against her leg. She stroked his fur, finding comfort in his uncomplicated devotion. At least someone stayed.

Another flash of lightning, and the sphinx globe caught the light—its painted riddle floating in oil: *What walks on four legs in the morning, two at noon, three at evening?* The answer was man, crawling, walking, leaning. But she'd been thinking about it wrong. The real riddle wasn't about stages of life. It was about how we carry what we've broken.

She opened the box. Removed David's books, kept the globe.

The storm broke as suddenly as it began, leaving the city washed gray and new. Mira stood at the window with Banjo, watching the dawn edges bleed through clouds. The sphinx smiled enigmatically from her palm, its silence finally making sense: some answers aren't solutions. They're just the beginning of living with the question.