The Sphinx Answers Nothing

The lightning crackled across the sky as Maya sat on her balcony, her iPhone illuminated against her palm. The message from David had been delivered three hours ago: *We need to talk about us.* That sphinx-like phrase—it demanded interpretation but offered no clues.

Beneath her, Barnaby the golden retriever whined in his sleep, twitching through some dog dream of chasing tennis balls that always managed to stay just beyond his reach. She envied him his simple hungers.

She and David had met playing padel at that overpriced club where tech workers pretended they were still athletic at forty. He'd been charming then—funny, self-deprecating, his backhand surprisingly lethal. They'd played every Saturday for six months, the rhythmic *thwack* of the ball against the glass walls becoming the soundtrack to their slow unraveling.

Now her phone buzzed again.

*I don't think I can do this anymore,* it read. Then: *I'm sorry.*

Maya laughed, a dry humorless sound. The sphinx had spoken at last, and its answer was remarkably unoriginal.

Another flash of lightning illuminated the patio, and for a second she saw it clearly: how they'd been playing at something—love, companionship, a future—that neither of them actually wanted. David had been honest in his own cowardly way. She, on the other hand, had been lying to herself for months, pretending that Saturday padel games and Sunday morning coffees and the careful, choreographed intimacy they performed was enough.

Barnaby woke, stretched, and nosed her hand. His eyes held that impossible devotion that dogs offered so freely and humans so rarely earned.

"You're the only one who's never lied to me," she whispered, scratching behind his ears.

The storm was moving east now, the lightning becoming distant fireworks. Maya typed a reply—*Thank you for being honest*—then deleted it. Deleted the second attempt too. Finally, she simply typed: *I know. Me neither.*

The sphinx had demanded an answer, and somehow, in giving one, they'd both failed the riddle.