The Sphinx in Cubicle 4B

Maya stared at the plastic sphinx paperweight on her desk, its chipped golden paint catching the fluorescent light. Three years at this advertising firm, and she felt like the mythical creature—trapped between worlds, asking riddles no one wanted to answer.

Her phone buzzed. Another text from Julian: *Dinner tonight? Same place?* She should feel something. Excitement, anticipation, anything. Instead, she felt like a zombie going through the motions of a relationship that had died months ago. They'd met at a coworking space in Santa Monica, where palm trees swayed outside the floor-to-ceiling windows, promising a California dream that never materialized. Now those same palms taunted her from her balcony view—reminders of roots that never took hold.

"Maya, the Henderson account needs those taglines by five," her manager called, walking past without stopping. Not asking how she was. Not noticing she'd lost eight pounds. Not seeing her at all.

She opened her desk drawer and counted the vitamin supplements: D for the sunlight she never saw, B-complex for energy she couldn't summon, magnesium for the sleep that wouldn't come. Her mother had sent them, concerned voice over the phone: *You sound tired, mija. Are you taking care of yourself?* Maya had lied, said yes, everything was fine. Some things you couldn't say across three thousand miles.

The sphinx seemed to mock her. *What walks on four legs in the morning, two at noon, three in the evening?* The answer was man, crawling through infancy, standing in adulthood, stooped in old age. But at thirty-two, Maya felt like she was already on three legs, bending under the weight of choices made and unmade.

Her hand hovered over the phone. She could text Julian back: *Can't make it.* She could grab her coat and walk out. She could call her mother and say, *I'm not okay.*

Instead, she swallowed the vitamins with lukewarm coffee, arranged the sphinx so it faced her computer screen, and opened the Henderson file. The palms outside swayed in another city's wind, and somewhere, a zombie kept walking because that's what zombies did.

The riddle wasn't what she was. The riddle was who she might become if she found the courage to ask better questions.