The Last Riddle

Maya stood before the bronze sphinx in the corporate lobby, its winged form frozen mid-pounce. For six years, she'd walked past this statue on her way to the corner office—the corner office she'd finally earned yesterday. The promotion should have felt like victory.

"You look like you're trying to solve a riddle," said Julian, the new analyst with fox-like eyes and an unsettling habit of appearing at the worst moments. He held a takeout container. "They forgot your spinach again."

She took it. They always forgot the spinach. It was the kind of small detail that made her wonder if anyone actually saw her.

"What's the riddle?" Julian asked.

"What walks on four legs in the morning, two at noon, and three in the evening?"

"Man. The sphinx's classic." He stepped closer. "But you're not asking about the riddle. You're asking what happens when the answer is no longer enough."

The words knocked the air from her lungs. At forty-two, Maya had everything she'd chased: the title, the salary, the corner view. But she'd also acquired a mortgage on a life she didn't want, a husband who'd moved into the guest room last spring, and a gnawing suspicion that she'd been answering the wrong riddles for decades.

Her phone buzzed—another crisis from the new VP, a man everyone called The Bull behind his back. He trampled through meetings, leaving chaos in his wake. She'd have to clean it up. She always did.

"What if I don't want to solve it anymore?" she asked the sphinx.

Julian's expression softened. "Then you stop walking toward other people's answers."

The spinach container felt warm in her hand. Something shifted—imperceptibly, like tectonic plates beneath solid ground.

Maya pressed the elevator button. Not for her floor. For the ground floor.

"Where are you going?" Julian called after her.

"To find a new question," she said.

The sphinx watched her go, its stone eyes holding secrets that only the brave could afford to leave unanswered.