The Riddle of the Living

Maria hadn't felt like herself since the divorce — more like a zombie moving through the days, hollowed out and automatic. Her therapist called it dissociation. She called it survival.

The museum gala was exactly the kind of event she'd been avoiding: too many people, too much champagne, too many well-meaning friends asking how she was doing. But the board had requested her presence. Something about donors.

She stood before the Egyptian exhibit, swirling her drink, when a man's voice cut through her fog.

"The riddle of the sphinx," he said, gesturing to the statue behind glass. "What walks on four legs in the morning, two at noon, three in the evening."

Maria turned. David — the new acquisitions curator, thirty-something with careful eyes and a mouth that hesitated before smiling. She'd seen him in meetings but never spoken.

"Man," she said. "It's about the stages of life."

"Or," he said, "maybe it's about what we lose along the way."

His iPhone buzzed on the marble pedestal where he'd rested it. Screen lighting up with notifications he ignored.

"You're not making small talk, are you?" Maria asked, something flickering in her chest that wasn't numbness.

"I'm terrible at it." He picked up his phone, typed something quick, set it down again. "My ex-wife texts about the kids. I respond in zombie mode — automatic, no feeling required. Then I come here and stare at old things and wonder what happens to all the moments we forget."

The sphinx watched them with limestone eyes.

"I thought the sphinx was about wisdom," Maria said.

"She ate everyone who couldn't solve her riddle. Maybe wisdom's just survival. Maybe we're all just trying not to get eaten."

Maria set down her glass. "What's your riddle?"

David looked at her then, really looked. "Can two people who've already lost everything find something worth keeping?"

The silence stretched. The sphinx said nothing.

"I don't know," Maria said, and for the first time in months, it wasn't a lie. "But I'd like to try solving it."

His phone buzzed again. This time, they both ignored it.