Sphinx in the Breakroom

Marcus stared at the goldfish swimming lazy circles in the breakroom aquarium, its orange scales catching the fluorescent light. Three months after Sarah moved out, and this was what his life had become: watching a fish with a seven-second memory while he microwaved his sad little Lean Cuisine.

His iPhone buzzed on the table—her lawyer, probably. He'd been ignoring the calls all morning. Instead, he'd gone running at 5 AM, a desperate attempt to outrun the silence in their four-bedroom house, now just his house. The vitamin supplements sat untouched on the kitchen counter, a month's supply he'd bought when he still believed he could optimize himself out of this mess.

The new office atrium featured a three-foot Egyptian sphinx replica, some corporate nonsense about "riddles and solutions" that management had paid fifty grand for. Marcus found himself standing before it during lunch break, asking the stone creature questions he couldn't ask his therapist, his friends, himself.

"Was I ever enough?" he whispered.

The sphinx said nothing, of course. But then, neither had Sarah. Not really. She'd just packed her things and left, like water slipping through fingers he couldn't close tight enough anymore.

His phone lit up again. A text this time, not a lawyer. "Mom's in the hospital. Can you come?"

Suddenly the vitamins, the running, the carefully curated Instagram life—all of it seemed absurd. He thought of the goldfish, swimming in endless circles, and realized he'd been doing the same thing: moving but never arriving, alive but not living.

The sphinx watched him with enigmatic limestone eyes as Marcus finally picked up his phone, called his ex-wife, and said the words he should have spoken three months ago.

"I need help. Will you meet me there?"