The Sphinx at Office Hour

I floated in the apartment complex pool, staring up at the moonlight filtering through the palm fronds, my second vodka tonic abandoned on the patio table. At 3 AM, the water was still warm from the day's heat, the way my entire life felt lately—warmed over, stagnant, utterly unable to cool down into anything refreshing.

My phone buzzed on the concrete. Marco. Again.

I didn't need to answer to know what he'd say: "Come back to the meeting, Sarah. We're reshuffling the pyramid structure again. You're crucial to this."

Crucial. That was rich. I was middle management in a zombie startup—already dead but still walking around, burning through venture capital, terrorizing the market with products nobody wanted. We'd pivoted four times this year. Our "revolutionary AI-driven pet food delivery platform" was now something about blockchain-verified organic spinach for crypto-owning rabbits. Or maybe that was last week's pivot. I'd stopped keeping track.

The patio door slid open. Lena, my neighbor from 4B, emerged in silk pajamas, a glass of wine in hand. She was forty-two, brilliant, currently unemployed after quitting her partnership at a law firm, and the most alive person I knew.

"Still floating?" she asked, sitting on the lounge chair.

"Still floating," I said.

She told me about her date earlier—some architect who'd spent three hours explaining his theory that the Great Sphinx was actually an astronomical clock created by an advanced pre-dynastic civilization. "He kept saying 'the riddle of the Sphinx' like it was profound. The riddle isn't the mystery, Sarah. The riddle is why we keep looking for meaning in things that are just... stones."

I drifted to the pool's edge. "Marco wants me back for another restructuring meeting."

"And?"

"And I'm tired of being a zombie in someone else's pyramid scheme."

Lena set down her wine. "So quit."

"It's 3 AM."

"Perfect timing. Everything's closed. You'll have to wait until morning to regret it." She offered me her hand. "Come inside. I have actual spinach—not the crypto kind. We'll make eggs."

I climbed out, dripping and shivering, and for the first time in months, I didn't feel like I was underwater.