The Sphinx at Breakfast

Every morning, Elena lined them up in military precision: the B-complex for energy she never felt, the D for the seasonal affective disorder her therapist swore she had, and the omega-3 that made her burp fish memories all day. The vitamin regimen was her only anchor in the weeks since Marcus left—until the cat appeared.

She'd named him Ramses, because he watched her with the inscrutable gaze of a sphinx, perched on her kitchen counter while she measured coffee grounds with surgical precision. He was a stray, mangy and missing half an ear, but he owned her space with the quiet arrogance of creatures who know they're staying whether invited or not.

"You're judging me," she told him one Tuesday, fumbling with child-proof caps. "I can feel it."

Ramses blinked slowly, his golden eyes holding ancient, mocking wisdom. Outside, rain streaked the window like the city was crying itself into something new.

"He took the coffee maker," she said, her voice cracking. "Who takes a coffee maker?"

The cat butted his head against her arm, a surprising warmth in her sterile apartment. He didn't care about her carefully curated wellness routine or the job performance review looming like a guillotine. He only cared that she was there, that she opened the expensive wet food he preferred, that she was alive.

That night, Elena skipped her evening supplements for the first time in months. Instead, she sat on her couch with Ramses purring like a small engine on her chest, watching something mindless on television. For the first time since Marcus packed his things, she didn't feel like she was forgetting something crucial.

She slept with the cat curled against her stomach, and dreamed of riddles with no answers, of standing before a great stone sphinx that asked nothing and offered everything. In the morning, the vitamins sat untouched on her counter. Ramses watched her eat toast, his sphinx-eyes patient and knowing.

Some things, she realized, couldn't be fixed with pills. Some things could only be lived through, with or without witnesses.