The Sphinx at Shortstop

The August heat waves practically radiated off the asphalt, turning everything wavy and surreal, like I was viewing the world through an old Instagram filter. I sat cross-legged on the curb, baseball glove beside me, watching the cable guy work his magic on the utility pole. My phone had been dead for two hours—dead dead, not just social media withdrawal dead.

"You're not gonna believe this," said Kai, dropping his skateboard on the sidewalk and collapsing next to me. We hadn't really been close since middle school, when our friend group did that inevitable breakup thing where everyone drifted into different cliques. But he lived on this street, and we'd both aged out of pretending we were strangers.

"Believe what?"

"Mr. Henderson's backyard. He's got that—that thing." Kai gestured vaguely. "The sphinx."

I laughed, then realized he wasn't joking. "For real? Like, an actual Egyptian sphinx?"

"His brother's some museum restoration guy. It's cracked and missing both ears, but yeah. My little sister calls it the Riddle Cat because she made up this whole backstory about it eating kids who can't solve its puzzles." Kai pulled a pack of gum from his pocket, offered me a piece. "Want to see it? The fence gate is unlatched."

Something about the afternoon—maybe the cable guy whistling pop songs, or how Kai still remembered I preferred watermelon gum—made me say yes. We hopped the fence anyway, because that's what you do when you're sixteen and occasionally stupid for no good reason.

The sphinx sat between a rusted trampoline and an above-ground pool, incongruous and magnificent. Stone pitted by weather, human face partially eroded but still holding this look of eternal knowing. I stood there, suddenly hyperaware of everything: the stickiness of humidity on my neck, the distant hum of lawnmowers, the way Kai was watching me like he was waiting for my reaction.

"It's smaller than I expected," I said.

"Everything is," Kai agreed. He pulled a crumpled paper from his pocket—our AP History summer assignment, due Monday. "Hey, speaking of ancient things that exist mainly to torture us..."

We ended up studying there for two hours, sitting cross-legged by the broken sphinx while the cable guy finished next door and the shadows grew long. The sphinx didn't ask us any riddles, but Kai and I talked about everything instead—why our friend group imploded, how he quit baseball because his dad's expectations had sucked the joy out of it, how I was terrified of trying out for the team because what if I wasn't good enough to justify the confidence everyone assumed I had.

"You're overthinking it," Kai said finally, as the streetlights flickered on. "Baseball's just a game. The sphinx gets it. Look at that face—that is a face that has seen worse outcomes than striking out."

I laughed so hard I nearly choked on gum. "You're so weird."

"You're the one studying next to a illegally imported Egyptian statue." He stood up, offered me a hand. "Hey, you want to catch tomorrow? I've still got my glove in the garage somewhere."

"Yeah," I said, letting him pull me up. "Yeah, I'd like that."

The cable guy had left a note on our door—service restored, finally. But I'd found something better than a working internet connection. Sometimes friendship sneaks up on you when you're not looking, mysterious and unexpected as a sphinx in the suburbs.