The Riddle of Us
Maya sat cross-legged on the floor of their apartment, surrounded by the detritus of a life half-lived. The orange cat—Barnaby—curled against her thigh, purring as if the world weren't ending. As if he couldn't feel it too.
The cable from the wall hung frayed where Ethan had ripped it out last night. "We don't need distractions," he'd said, eyes dead-flat, before retreating to his home office. They hadn't spoken since.
She pressed her palm to the cool glass of the window. Six months ago, she would have said she knew this man. Now she felt like she was confronting the sphinx itself—Ethan had become a creature of impossible riddles, his motives inscrutable, his affection a series of cryptic gestures she could no longer decode.
The zombie comparison was cruel, but accurate. Not the undead kind—the living kind, the ones who walked through their days on autopilot, who smiled at dinner with something missing behind their eyes. Ethan was still there, in body. But something essential had hollowed itself out.
Barnaby shifted, stretching his claws into her yoga pants. The sharp little points were the only thing that felt real anymore.
"Your father loves you," she whispered to the cat. "In his way."
But did he? Did he love her? The question had become a sphinx's riddle with no answer, no prize for solving it correctly. Just the endless asking.
Her phone buzzed—a message from her sister. "You coming to Mom's birthday?"
Maya typed "yes" automatically, then deleted it. Then typed it again. The cable from her charger was tangled around her ankle, literally tying her to this room, this moment, this impossible choice.
Zombie was what happened when you stayed too long in something that had already died.
Barnaby stood, padded to the closed door of Ethan's office, and scratched. Once. A demand.
Maya stood too. The sphinx's riddle had never been about guessing correctly. It had been about being willing to walk into the unknown.
She packed a bag. She left the cable on the floor.
Some answers, she realized, were actions.