Orange Hour at the Sphinx

Elena sat in the cramped apartment, watching her goldfish circle its bowl in endless loops. Three months since David left, and she'd somehow become the kind of person who talked to fish.

"You know," she whispered to the goldfish, "the sphinx asked a riddle, but at least Oedipus got an answer. I just get silence."

Her phone litened with a message from Mark: "Thinking about you. Drinks at The Sphinx tonight?"

The Sphinx was the bar where she and David had met. Where David had told her he loved her while peeling an orange, his fingers stained with citrus, his eyes bright with something she'd mistaken for forever. Where he'd also told her three months later that he wasn't ready for "something serious."

Elena stood, her legs stiff from sitting too long. She'd been working remotely since the breakup, debugging legacy code for a company that had stopped caring about their product years ago. The coaxial cable from her internet connection lay coiled on the floor like a sleeping snake.

In the kitchen, she stared at a bag of spinach that had gone slimy three days ago. She'd meant to cook, meant to eat properly, meant to do many things. Instead, she'd existed on takeout and the occasional orange, letting the apartment dissolve around her.

Mark was kind. Mark was available. Mark was the kind of man who would remember to buy fresh spinach.

She typed back: "Yes. 8?"

The goldfish bumped against the glass. Elena tapped the bowl gently. "Sorry, little guy. You're coming too."

She found a small container, caught the fish with shaking hands—god, she was terrible at this—and placed it in her purse. The absurdity of bringing a goldfish to a bar where she might start something new with a man who wasn't David struck her as both tragic and exactly the kind of thing her life had become.

Outside, the sunset burned orange across the sky. Elena walked toward The Sphinx, the fish bumping against her hip with every step, the coaxial cable still coiled on her floor, the spinach still rotting in her fridge.

Some riddles, she realized, you answered by walking straight into them anyway.