The Sphinx of Third Period

My beanie was basically my security blanket freshman year. Pull it down, eyes hidden, problems invisible. But today in third period English, Mr. Harrison dropped the ancient Egypt unit and I swear, I felt like I'd been thrown into some sphinx's lair.

"Who wants to decode the riddle of the Sphinx?" he asked, and everyone's phone screens lit up like we weren't already zombies from last night's TikTok doomscroll. I nudged Jordan — my friend since seventh grade when we both failed that gym class rock-climbing wall together. Jordan was currently dissociating into their hoodie, probably replaying whatever awkward thing happened at lunch.

The question on the board: "What walks on four legs in the morning, two at noon, three in the evening?"

Classic, right? But sitting there, watching the sun stretch across the classroom floors, it hit me different. We're all just trying to figure out how to walk on our own two feet without falling flat. Some days you're crawling, some days you're limping through with emotional baggage you didn't ask for.

"It's 'man,' or like, humans," Jordan whispered, suddenly present. "Baby, adult, old person with a cane. Three stages."

"Lowkey profound," I said back, and Jordan actually smiled.

After class, Jordan was like, "Wanna hit the library? I need to not think about how I totally flopped that Spanish presentation."

"Bet."

So we sat there, pretending to study while actually just dissecting why Tyler from calc had liked Jordan's story but then proceeded to fully zombie-walk past them in the hall like they didn't exist. The困惑 was real, the drama was unnecessary, but somehow it mattered so much.

"Maybe," I said, adjusting my hat like it would somehow fix the situation, "the riddle isn't about legs. Maybe it's about how many versions of yourself you gotta be before you figure out who you actually are."

Jordan stared. "Since when are you deep?"

"Since I realized we're all just sphinxes asking questions we don't have answers to."

They laughed, and for a second, the chaos didn't feel so heavy. We'd figure it out. Eventually. Between the zombie mornings and the existential lunch breaks, we'd find our stride. Two legs, hopefully. Maybe three on the hard days.