The Sunday Morning Riddle

The ball hit the padel court with a hollow thwack, echoing in the empty indoor facility. Elena's arm moved automatically, muscle memory from three years of Sunday morning games with Mark. Their ritual: padel at nine, coffee at ten, silent existential dread by eleven.

"You're taking those new vitamins?" Mark asked between points, wiping sweat from his forehead.

Elena checked her watch. "The B-complex ones. supposed to help with energy. Or maybe it's just expensive urine. Who knows?"

Mark laughed, but his eyes stayed distant. Elena watched him and wondered when her husband had become a sphinx—inscrutable, poseur of riddles she couldn't solve. They'd been friends since college, lovers since thirty, married by thirty-five. Now, at forty-two, she couldn't remember the last time she'd truly known him.

"You seem tired," she said.

"We're all tired, El. Just walking zombies in nice clothes."

The words hit harder than the ball. Because wasn't that exactly what they were? Going through motions, repeating the same patterns, alive but not living. She'd suggested counseling last month. He'd said they were fine. They weren't fine.

"Mark—"

"Game point." His voice sharpened. He served.

Elena let the ball pass. It bounced twice, died by the fence.

"Why'd you let it drop?"

"I'm done with games," she said. "Padel, marriage, whatever fake version of friendship we're pretending to have. I want the real thing. Or I want nothing."

Mark's racquet touched the ground. Finally, something genuine.

"I thought if we kept the routine, kept taking the vitamins, playing padel, that it would be enough. That you wouldn't notice I've been dead inside for years."

"I noticed," she said. "I was just too much of a zombie myself to do anything about it."

They left the court without speaking. The sphinx had no riddles left, only truth. They walked toward the coffee shop, toward something uncertain but authentic, leaving dead games behind them.