Riddles at Midnight

The sphinx statue in the park had become her confessor. Elena approached it at 2 AM, breathless from running, her lungs burning in the cold November air. Three months since David left, and still she sought answers from weathered stone.

"What walks on four legs in the morning, two at noon, three in the evening?" she whispered to the granite face. A child's riddle, but the answer had changed. Man. She was thirty-four, walking on two legs toward a future that felt increasingly like stumbling.

Her feet thudded against the pavement, running from the empty apartment, the wedding photos still on the walls. The physical exertion was the only thing that quieted the questions. Why wasn't she enough? What had she missed? The sphinx offered no reply, only its enigmatic smile carved in shadow.

A noise from the bushes. A stray cat emerged — scrawny, one ear notched from old battles. It regarded her with yellow eyes, then wound through her legs, purring like a small engine. David had hated cats. Too independent, he'd said. Too unlike the domestic partner he wanted.

She knelt, her running shorts soaking up dew, and let the creature press its forehead against her palm. Something shifted in her chest — not healing, exactly, but recognition. The riddle wasn't about legs or stages of life. It was about becoming.

The cat meowed, demanding, and Elena laughed — an rusty sound, unused these months. In the distance, streetlamps flickered toward dawn. She stood, knees creaking, and the cat trotted beside her as she began the long walk home.

Her father's old fedora still hung on the coat rack, David's departure having left it undisturbed. She'd worn it once to a funeral, felt like an imposter. But maybe that's what sphinxes were for — not to solve you, but to remind you that you were the riddle all along.

The cat followed her all the way home, as if deciding. Elena unlocked the door and let it in first. Then she took the hat from the rack, placed it on her head at a jaunty angle, and faced her reflection in the hallway mirror.

She looked ridiculous. She looked like someone learning to walk on however many legs she damn well pleased.