What the Sphinx Asked

The cable lay coiled like a dead snake in Marcus's living room — three hundred feet of coaxial he'd meant to return to Comcast six months ago, after Jenna canceled the subscription. After everything.

Marcus stepped over it on his way to the kitchen, zombie-eyed from another night of sleeping on the couch. The couch where Jenna had last sat, crying silently about the promotion she didn't get, the mortgage that wouldn't stop mounting, the life that had become a series of compromises wearing away at her like water on stone.

She was his oldest friend. They'd met in freshman English, bonded over being the only two people who actually liked the assigned reading. Twenty-three years of friendship, and somehow in all that time, he'd never noticed the weight she carried until it crushed her.

The cable whispered against the floorboards when he kicked it by accident. He'd been meaning to call them to come pick it up. But then he'd remember: Jenna's number was still on the account. Her voice was still on the voicemail greeting. If he called, they'd ask to speak to her, and he'd have to explain again.

Again and again and again.

He poured coffee that tasted like burnt regret. The sphinx had been right, he thought humorlessly. All those college bull sessions about mythology, and Jenna had always argued that the sphinx's riddle wasn't about aging — it was about something else. What walks on four legs, then two, then three? A human life, yes. But also: grief. Confusion. The slow realization that you never really know the people you love.

Four legs: the childhood friendship, solid and complete. Two legs: the adult years, learning to walk together through marriages and careers and mortgages. Three legs: now, leaning heavily on something — anything — to stay upright.

Marcus looked at the cable again. It connected to nothing. Signal-less. Like him.

"What's the riddle?" Jenna had asked him once, drunk on cheap wine in this very kitchen. "What's the thing that changes everything but leaves you exactly where you started?"

He'd never answered her.

Now he knew. The answer was loss. It hollowed you out while leaving your life completely intact. The job still needed doing. The cable still needed returning. The coffee still brewed at 7 AM.

Marcus picked up the phone. Dialed the number on the bill.

"Yes," he said when they answered. "I need to schedule a pickup. And I need to change the account holder."

For the first time in three months, he didn't feel like a zombie. He felt like someone who'd finally been asked the right question.