The Riddle of Absence

Maya stood in the fluorescent-lit breakroom, staring at the papaya she'd brought for lunch. Its flesh was the color of sunrise, speckled with black seeds that looked like tiny eyes watching her. Three weeks since David left the firm—since he'd left her standing outside his apartment at 2 AM with nothing but a hollowed-out chest and a key that no longer worked.

"You're like the Sphinx," he'd told her once, drunk on expensive scotch and the thrill of their quarter-life crisis. "All riddles, no answers."

She'd laughed then, tracing the line of his jaw. "Maybe you're just asking the wrong questions."

Now she popped a vitamin D supplement—her therapist called it "the sunshine vitamin," a cruel joke considering London had been gray for seventeen days straight. The pill stuck in her throat, a pharmaceutical reminder that even basic survival required effort now.

Her phone buzzed. A notification from LinkedIn: David had updated his profile. Senior Analyst at some hedge fund in Singapore.

The papaya sat untouched on her desk as she opened the spreadsheet she'd been avoiding for days. The numbers blurred together—projections she'd made with him, forecasts they'd debated over takeout, dreams of corner offices and weekend getaways that now felt like artifacts from a civilization she'd only read about.

"Maya?" Her boss's voice cut through her thoughts. "You okay? You've been staring at that screen for twenty minutes."

She looked up. The office lights hummed with the same indifferent frequency they always had. "Fine," she said. "Just thinking about riddles."

He shrugged and walked away. People always did.

She took a bite of the papaya. It was sweeter than she expected—too ripe, almost fermenting at the edges. Like them. Like everything eventually.

The riddle wasn't why he left. The riddle was why she'd thought, even for a second, that anyone could be the answer to questions she hadn't finished asking herself.

She swallowed. The vitamin sat heavy in her stomach, and for the first time all day, something felt real.