The Sphinx of Sunday Morning

The zombie apocalypse had started three weeks ago, but Maya still showed up at the padel court every Sunday at 7 AM. It was her thing with Marcus—before. Before he'd been bitten, before he'd shuffled off into the cornfields with the others, leaving her with a racket she couldn't bear to throw away.

Today, the orange dawn bled through the skylight as she served ball after ball against the glass wall. Thwack. Thwack. The sound echoed in the empty club.

"You're getting worse, not better."

Maya spun around. An old woman sat in the spectator's gallery, legs crossed, wearing a faded tracksuit. The sphinx nose tattoo on her cheek moved as she smiled.

"Excuse me?"

"I've been watching you," the woman said. "Three weeks of angry serving, and your backhand still falls apart when you think about him."

Maya tightened her grip on the racket. "Who are you?"

"Elena. I own the place. Well, owned it before... everything." She gestured vaguely at the world outside. "Before the dead started walking and the living started hiding."

"Why keep it open?"

"Why do you keep coming?" Elena countered. Then softer: "I saw him, you know. Marcus."

Maya's breath caught. "You saw a zombie. That's not him."

"He was wearing that ridiculous orange headband you gave him last Christmas." Elena's voice was gentle. "He stood at the fence for twenty minutes, just watching you play. Every Sunday."

The racket slipped from Maya's fingers. Clattered against the court floor.

"The thing about zombies," Elena continued, "is that they're not gone. They're still here. Just... simplified. Stripped down to the essentials." She stood up, walked to the edge of the court. "Maybe love is one of those essentials."

"That's not love," Maya whispered. "That's hunger."

"Is there really a difference?" Elena asked. "At the end of everything, aren't we all just hungry for something?"

Outside, something scraped against the chain-link fence. A low, familiar groan.

Maya looked at Elena, then at the gate, then back at the racket lying on the ground.

"Your serve," Elena said.

Maya picked up the racket. Her hands weren't shaking anymore.Outside, the orange sun rose higher over a world that had ended and not ended, full of sphinx-like riddles she finally felt ready to answer.