Running from the Sphinx

The papaya sat on her kitchen counter, its skin mottled with yellow like a bruised sky. Sarah stood over it with a knife, thinking about how David used to joke that the sphinx had more riddles than their marriage ever did. That was three months ago, before he left for that consulting gig in Dubai and never really came back—not in the ways that mattered.

She'd taken up running at dawn, something she'd sworn she'd never do in her thirties. But the motion had become necessary, a way to outrun the dreams where she couldn't remember his face anymore. The route took her past the university's philosophy department, where a replica sphinx sat in the courtyard garden—its limestone face eroded by rain and student vandalism. Some mornings, she imagined it was mocking her with its riddle: What runs but never moves, grows but never changes?

Now she chopped the papaya, its flesh revealing black seeds like tiny secrets. She added it to the spinach wilting in the pan, watching steam rise like the ghosts of conversations they'd never had. The timing was almost funny—David leaving just as she'd finally learned to cook without burning things, just as she'd stopped waiting for his approval to feel real.

Her running shoes sat by the door, still damp from morning fog. The sphinx would still be there tomorrow, patient and crumbling, holding its own counsel. Some riddles, Sarah realized, didn't have answers—they just had the asking. She plated the food, watching spinach wrap around papaya in accidental harmony, and sat down to eat alone, finally.