The Last Question

Elena had been working the night shift for three years when she stopped recognizing herself in mirrors. That particular brand of exhaustion—the kind that makes your own reflection feel like a stranger's face—had turned her into something that moved through the world without really inhabiting it. A corporate zombie, she thought, pouring coffee that had gone cold hours ago.

Buster, her elderly golden retriever, was the only thing that anchored her to something resembling reality. He'd been with her through the divorce, through her mother's declining health, through countless nights when the city outside her window glowed with that sickly orange light that never really faded. Now his muzzle was white, his hips stiff, but he still greeted her with that tail-wagging enthusiasm that made everything else bearable.

The new neighbor moved in at 3 AM—which, in Elena's inverted life, was late afternoon. A woman who carried herself like she knew secrets, who asked questions that felt like tests. A sphinx in a peacoat, Elena decided after their third encounter in the building's eerie, pyramid-shaped lobby. The architect had been pretentious—something about "hierarchical spatial flow"—but mostly it just meant the upper floors got all the light while the ground floor felt like a tomb.

"Why do you never sleep?" the sphinx asked one night, leaning against the mailboxes that lined the lobby's triangular walls.

Elena should have made an excuse. Instead she heard herself say, "Because if I sleep, I dream about things I can't have back."

The woman nodded, like this was the answer she'd been expecting. "The dog," she said. "He's why you haven't broken yet."

Buster chose that moment to lumber down the hall, his nails clicking on the polished concrete. He sat between them, leaning his warm weight against Elena's legs, and the sphinx crouched to stroke his ears with hands that shook slightly.

"I had to put mine down last week," she said softly. "She was fourteen. I feel like I'm walking around missing half my soul."

Something cracked open in Elena's chest. "His name is Buster," she found herself saying. "And he loves cheese. The expensive kind."

The sphinx laughed, surprised and genuine. "I'm Mara."

"Elena."

They sat on the lobby floor while Buster slept between them, two zombies in a pyramid-shaped tomb, sharing cheese and stories about the dogs who had taught them how to love again.