The Sphinx in the Garden

Margaret sat on her porch swing, watching Thomas, her tabby cat, stalk invisible prey through the morning dew. At seventy-eight, she'd learned that patience wasn't just a virtue—it was survival.

"You're looking quite zombie-like today, aren't you?" she murmured as Thomas flopped dramatically at the foot of the concrete sphinx her husband Arthur had brought home from Egypt decades ago. The statue's chipped wings guarded the garden, its riddle-carved face weathered by fifty summers.

Her granddaughter Lily had come over yesterday, going on about zombie shows and how the undead were metaphors for things that won't stay buried. Margaret had smiled, thinking how Lily saw everything so dramatically at twenty-three.

But Margaret understood something Lily didn't yet: some things should remain undead. The sphinx had outlasted Arthur, outlasted the mortgage, and would likely outlast her. Some love, some wisdom, refuses to die.

Thomas, now fully animated, purred against the sphinx's base. Margaret remembered Arthur saying, "A riddle without an answer is just a question waiting for its time."

She'd finally solved the riddle of the sphinx: what walks on four legs in the morning, two at noon, and three in evening? It wasn't a man—it was love. First new and stumbling, then standing proud, then supported by memories.

"Zombie roses," Arthur had called the flowers that returned each spring despite neglect. "They refuse to acknowledge they're done."

Margaret rested her hand on the cat's warm fur. Some things, she knew, deserved resurrection.