What the Sphinx Knows

The sphinx had been watching Elena for three days. Not a literal sphinx, of course—that would be absurd—but that godforsaken concrete monstrosity her company had installed in the lobby of their Bangkok office. Winged, lion-bodied, and worst of all, wearing the CEO's smug face laser-etched into its stone features.

Elena sat beneath it every morning, papaya breakfast in hand, wondering if corporate architecture counted as a riddle with no answer. The fruit's sweet musk filled her nose, transported her to that summer in Oaxaca with Marco, before everything—the promotion, the divorce, the slow erosion of the woman she used to be.

"You going to eat that, or stare holes through it?"

She looked up. Marcus from Accounting, standing too close, palm pressed against the sphinx's paw like he was seeking benediction from a particularly bureaucratic deity.

"It's perfectly ripe," she said, not an answer. "The papaya, I mean. Not the sphinx. That's been overripe since 2019."

He laughed, but his eyes kept flickering toward her left hand—ringless since February. "Want to grab coffee? There's this place around the corner—"

"I don't date coworkers."

"I meant coffee. Literally. Caffeinated beverage. You've got papaya on your chin, by the way."

The sphinx seemed to smirk. Her phone buzzed—her ex, asking if she'd signed the papers yet. The papaya suddenly tasted like ash and memory.

"Marcus?" she said, standing. "Show me this coffee place. But if you mention my chin again, I'm telling HR you palm-read without a license."

He blinked, then grinned. "Deal. But fair warning: my palms only say you're going to spill hot coffee on yourself within the hour."

Some prophecies, Elena decided as they walked out into the humidity, were worth risking.