What the Sphinx Forgot to Ask

The goldfish had been circling its bowl for three hours, or maybe three days. Elena couldn't remember, not since she'd stopped checking her iPhone for messages from Marcus. The battery had died somewhere between Chicago and Atlanta, which felt appropriate.

The storm outside was spectacular — lightning fracturing the sky every few seconds, illuminating the cheap motel room where she'd landed after canceling the wedding. Her phone lay dead on the nightstand beside a rotting papaya she'd bought from a roadside stand, its flesh weeping onto the stained glass.

She'd been explaining it to herself like a riddle. What walks on four legs in the morning, two legs at noon, and three legs in the evening, and still manages to ruin everything by age thirty-five? The sphinx never bothered asking that one.

The goldfish — she'd named it Oedipus somewhere in Georgia — opened and closed its stupid mouth, bubbling. A creature that couldn't remember anything past seven seconds, and still it kept swimming. No existential crises. No mornings spent wondering whether seventeen years with someone had been wasted or merely deposited into some emotional bank account that had just collapsed.

More lightning. The room flashed white. She saw herself in the mirror — mascara-streaked, wearing what remained of the bridesmaid dress she'd shredded in a Days Inn parking lot outside Nashville. The papaya had collapsed completely now, a heap of sweet failure.

Her phone twitched. The battery wasn't dead after all. One bar.

Marcus's name appeared on the screen. A text. Just three words.

The goldfish kept swimming.

Elena picked up the phone. She ate a piece of papaya. She let the phone buzz its way back to darkness.