The Sphinx of Sales

Marina pressed her **palm** against the cool glass of the CEO's office, watching the sunset bleed across the LA skyline through the lens of her own hand. Below, the corporate garden — her sanctuary — was already in shadow. She'd spent seven hours today in meetings where Richardson, that **bull** of a man with his neck ties too tight and his temper too short, had berated the sales team for missing quarterly projections by three percent.

"You're not hungry enough," he'd bellowed, his face the color of impending stroke. Marina had doodled a sphinx in her notebook, ancient and inscrutable, wondering what riddles it would ask this man who confused aggression with ambition.

Now the building was mostly empty. She slipped downstairs to the rooftop garden, where the stray **cat** — a scarred calico she'd named Cleo — waited by the bench. Marina's secret stash: a perfectly ripened **papaya** from the Vietnamese market, knife hidden in her bag. She sliced it open, the orange flesh glowing in the twilight, offering half to Cleo, who deigned to accept it with typical feline gratitude.

"My mother read palms, you know," Marina whispered to the cat, feeding her another piece. "She'd look at my hand when I was twelve and tell me I'd leave the island, make something of myself. She didn't mention I'd spend my days watching men like Richardson destroy themselves for numbers that don't exist outside spreadsheets."

The corporate garden's centerpiece was a replica of the Great **Sphinx** — Richardson's pretentious nod to "timeless leadership." Marina sat on its stone paw, the papaya sweet on her tongue, Cleo purring against her thigh. Tomorrow she'd accept the competitor's offer. Tonight she just watched the city lights flicker on, a constellation of ambitions she no longer needed to wish upon.

"Hungry enough," she said aloud, and Cleo butted her head against Marina's knee. "Yeah. Me too."